My Life Story - The Tale of Greg and Jami

 Ok, so time's going to get a bit wibbly wobbly here, but bear with me. So, the year is 1996. My boyfriend at the time was back in prison for who knows how long (parole violation after aggravated robbery). I had been seeing another guy who was really quite garbage (it was a theme for the time period), broke up with him and started seeing his best friend who was a decent person, but still part of the same crowd of people. They were literally neonazi skinheads, the story of how I came to be acquainted with them will be later in the blog. Names have been changed. 

Anyway, I was living in Hobbs, New Mexico. My parents were getting ready to move to Texarkana, TX and wanted me to go with them. I wasn't working currently, I had just finished a semester of Junior College and was planning on starting back in the spring. I was seeing Liam, who was sweet and young. His best friend, Thomas, was kind of in the picture, but not really. My ex, Peter, was in Lea County Jail waiting extradition to the state penitentiary. I was staying with another friend, I don't remember his name, but he was a sweet guy. He was one of the few guys I knew at the time who was not a romantic/sexual interest. Just a quick recap of the previous year: I had gotten pregnant by Peter and miscarried, he told me the day that I found out I was miscarrying that he had been cheating on me and didn't think our relationship would last, just a few days after that he came home with a hickey from some other girl on his neck. I still wanted him, though, and stayed until his next meeting with his parole officer when he popped positive for weed in his urine and was arrested again. That's when I started hooking up with Thomas, who almost anally raped me at one point and then threatened to hit me when I told him that I didn't care for him, he was just a replacement in my bed for Peter. Then I hooked up with Liam. So that's kind of a back story of that year. It's January, my parents are packing and I've moved into my friend's house. He was a hoarder and his house was a maze of old electronics and newspapers, I had my own room but the bathroom was just big enough for a shower and the house reeked of old cigarettes and mold. My parents asked one last time if I wanted to go with them, and I finally caved and got my stuff, packed up, and we headed out. 

We stopped at my step-sister's house. She and I talked and this is fuzzy, I can't remember if I planned to live wither from the start or if I decided when we stopped at her place. Anyway, I ended up staying at her house in Carrollton, TX (near Dallas) with her, her husband, and their 5 year old daughter. I applied for different jobs, got one at the Galleria Mall working for some testing company, I was supposed to ask shoppers questions and get them to sample products and such. I worked until my break and then left. 

My sister was a delivery driver for Domino's Pizza. I had worked with her at Domino's in Wake Village, TX for a while and then I worked at the Domino's in Hobbs for a while, even getting up to assistant manager. So, I figured what the heck. I'll work there until I find something better. Little did I know, as soon as my sister knew I was coming, she had started talking to coworkers, trying to get one to be interested in me so I would fall in love and live there forever. I went for my interview, met the manger, Greg, and got hired. My sister asked me what I thought of the guys I would be working with, and I said they were ok, but what about Greg? She said she hadn't thought about him, she thought he had a girlfriend. Well, I talked to him and, again, time gets weird, but I know that one night I came home from work and my sister and I sat up most of the night giggling and talking and I gushed about Greg and his cowboy hat, belt and boots...which, of course, I shared with him at work the next day. Within the week, he had asked me out on a date. We went out to dinner at Dave & Buster's and then his place where he showed me some wicked card tricks, we listened to John Michael Montgomery and then we went to see "12 Monkeys" at The Grand. Then we went back to his place. 

I know time passed, but I don't know how much. It seems like it was that week that my sister left her husband and Greg offered for us to stay at his place. My sister, her daughter and I all moved into his one bedroom apartment in February of 1996. I turned 20 in March and found out I was pregnant about that time. His younger sister moved in with us and got a job at Domino's, she was also pregnant and due about the same time. Since that apartment was very small, we all moved to another apartment in Lewisville, TX. One night, he was on the phone with his mother and I overheard him say "I don't know, probably this summer". I said "How about July?". So, we got married on July 14, 1996. My step-dad officiated, my grandfather walked me down the aisle, and Greg's cousins were his best men. 

We planned to have our wedding at my parents house in Texarkana. The day of our wedding, it rained. We crammed both our families into my parents house and car port, got married, and then took a nap. By the time we woke up, all of the food for the reception had been eaten so we had tuna sandwiches as we packed and got ready to drive to his mother's house in Aransas Pass, TX. We spent a night there, then went to a hotel in Corpus Christi. 

Our first child was born on November 12, 1996. 

Within a year, I went from a miscarriage with a nazi to being married to, in my mind, my soul mate, my beautiful daughter, and absolute happiness. My step-dad died that January, so we went to his funeral in Southland, TX. Just a month after our first anniversary, Greg essentially had a nervous breakdown and quit his job at Domino's. We didn't know what we would do, he was talking to an Air Force recruiter but having a hard time connecting. One night, my mother and I were at Eckerd Drug store getting some medicine for my daughter and I saw a Navy recruiter. I jokingly suggested I should get his number for Greg, and as fate would have it, he overheard us. I spoke to him for a minute and exchanged numbers, got his card and by the time I got home, Greg was scheduled for MEPS and he left in September for Great Lakes and Navy Boot Camp. In January, we moved to Everett, WA. 

Greg is not a super emotional man. That works well with me, who tends to be more emotional than necessary. We have always balanced each other, and through everything, we have had each other to turn to. He reaches through my darkest times and gives me solid ground to stand on, even when he was out in the middle of the sea. He can make me smile at the worst of times and I can say with absolute certainty, I would not be here without him. 

Now, here we are. Two days from now will be our 25th wedding anniversary, and just like the original, things aren't as we planned. Instead of preparing for a party to celebrate this crazy life we've built together, we are packing for a trip to Corpus Christi to meet with his family and say goodbye to the family matriarch, Big G, Greg's grandmother (his mother's mother). 

And, like we do with everything, we take it in stride, work together to make the trip, and make the best of a pretty grim situation. We will see family we haven't seen in forever, we will see places we've wanted to show the kids, and we will take a day to go to San Antonio and visit the Natural Bridge Caverns. And then, we will be home in time to have a small pot luck party with local friends to celebrate 25 years of working together to overcome every obstacle, raise four amazing people, traveling from coast to coast and loving each other through thick and thin, sickness and health, until our lives together end.