For Kmarie
My best friend is getting married very soon. So I have been thinking over my own romance, how things have changed since my beloved and I fell in love and married. And how our lives have developed since she and I met.
She is nearly 4 years older than I (and four months older than my hubby!), but Kmarie was the one that I turned to when life was driving me crazy - before and even during my courtship with my sweetheart. By the time D proposed, I had switched over to confiding in him, as it should be, but still Kmarie and I have enjoyed conversing and swapping stories. She was my maid of honor, and there is still no one I would rather have taking that place.
We met on an April day in 2009, and immediately I felt comfortable just walking up and introducing myself -- never have I felt that with anyone else. I'm a shy person, in case you didn't know. She was fourteen; I was eleven. We were both homeschooled, horse-crazy girls with temperamental mares. The friendship took off from there.
We have watched each other's lives evolve and mature. She went to the local junior college for two years (2012 - 2014), published a book during that time, and then graduated and went off to Europe with her best friend for six weeks over the following winter. I watched her horse and exercised her when the weather and ground wasn't too bad. It was a particularly snowy, icky late winter that Kmarie happened to be gone for! Prior to that, she took me to the races for the first time (2015 Smarty Jones at Oaklawn), and to a dinner theatre show in Dallas over Christmas. We had gone to rodeos, watched Kentucky Derbies, trail-rode many times together, and I had even stayed over for a week at one point during the years we had known each other. She even helped me break my mares, Sue J and Spirit.
I, meanwhile, grew up and blogged randomly (so did she...), while dreaming of Thoroughbreds and mustangs and riding my own horses. I sold Spirit in 2012, and broke a few other horses for other people over the years. I didn't graduate high school until December 2015, and had no plans for a junior college or higher education by that point. However, I had wanted to move to Kentucky, and spent a lot of time over the years figuring out just how I was going to do that.
She had her eye on teaching music and being a spinster with horses and a castle. I wanted to be involved in horse racing - there were even tentative plans to live with her in her RV while she was in a college six hours away, after my 18th birthday, and start working and saving to go to the North American Racing Academy (as well as splitting the bills while we shared the RV). I wanted to study and become a trainer, and meet and marry someone in that industry. I was only 16 when I started formulating this plan and she had decided on her school, and I didn't foresee meeting the love of my life within the next few months. But, I did want to leave things loose in case somehow it did happen.
We have watched each other's lives evolve and mature. She went to the local junior college for two years (2012 - 2014), published a book during that time, and then graduated and went off to Europe with her best friend for six weeks over the following winter. I watched her horse and exercised her when the weather and ground wasn't too bad. It was a particularly snowy, icky late winter that Kmarie happened to be gone for! Prior to that, she took me to the races for the first time (2015 Smarty Jones at Oaklawn), and to a dinner theatre show in Dallas over Christmas. We had gone to rodeos, watched Kentucky Derbies, trail-rode many times together, and I had even stayed over for a week at one point during the years we had known each other. She even helped me break my mares, Sue J and Spirit.
I, meanwhile, grew up and blogged randomly (so did she...), while dreaming of Thoroughbreds and mustangs and riding my own horses. I sold Spirit in 2012, and broke a few other horses for other people over the years. I didn't graduate high school until December 2015, and had no plans for a junior college or higher education by that point. However, I had wanted to move to Kentucky, and spent a lot of time over the years figuring out just how I was going to do that.
She had her eye on teaching music and being a spinster with horses and a castle. I wanted to be involved in horse racing - there were even tentative plans to live with her in her RV while she was in a college six hours away, after my 18th birthday, and start working and saving to go to the North American Racing Academy (as well as splitting the bills while we shared the RV). I wanted to study and become a trainer, and meet and marry someone in that industry. I was only 16 when I started formulating this plan and she had decided on her school, and I didn't foresee meeting the love of my life within the next few months. But, I did want to leave things loose in case somehow it did happen.
Which, of course, it did. I had just turned 17 when I met my sweetheart, and he proposed October 1 - just over six months from when we met. That November, Kmarie moved off to college, and she stayed there for a whole year and a half with the odd trip back to the area now and then. Due to health reasons - both physical and mental - she moved back after her spring 2017 semester. Plans slowly developed, and she moved out of the RV and into an apartment in town not long after. The boyfriend she had made just before moving back disappeared from her life once it was confirmed that they were not a good fit, and she settled into the life she was used to in the town we had both lived near just 18 months prior.
Her life was consumed by work and theatre, for she was a musician and a local actress before leaving for college, and she pretty much resumed where she left off when she came back. My own life was three hours away from hers and I was busy being a mother - visiting town every month or so, and working on saving money to be debt free with my hubby.
But over the summer and fall of 2017, she fell in love with a man she had known for years through theatre, a man she had called one of her best friends for a long time. By December, it was pretty obvious where the relationship was going, and I got the call about the engagement just after midnight on New Year's Day 2018.
Anyway. They have spent the last eight months planning and stressing over this wedding, and I am a bridesmaid. I got to pick my own dress, using color and style guidelines, and I purchased it in June after it was confirmed that I was most definitely pregnant with baby number 2. I have been blessed in the fact that I don't have to look a certain way for this wedding, and Kmarie is not a bridezilla!
Her fiance is a wonderful man, and I love the way he treats my best friend. It is not unlike how my own beloved treats me, and I know the pair is a phenomenal match. Kmarie, since moving back to her hometown, has relaxed and become healthier physically and mentally. College life was not for her, and although she will be finishing her degree at some point, it won't be the way she envisioned - and that's fine. Her dreams are changing, and she is learning to let them evolve as her own life evolves. She has a very good job, a future in the company she works for, a good place to live, and a man to love her and be her constant ally.
And so, just a few evenings from now, I will be walking up the aisle to witness and be a part of the wedding of two fantastic people. My son and husband will be in the audience.
I love Kmarie as a sister, and seeing how much in love she is and how genuine her man is, makes me relish my own husband's presence more. It's been nearly two and a half years since we wed, and the way our love has grown I couldn't be more amazed. My prayer and hope is that Kmarie and her beloved grow more in love every day they are married, and that they are married until death parts them. Kmarie will always be dreaming of horses and castles, and involved in theatre and music and writing. I will be dreaming and working toward a future with fast horses while raising a band of amazing kids. Together and apart, she and I will always share the love of horses and writing -- with each other and the world.
It's hard to believe that nine years ago, we were both little girls with crazy dreams and silly mares. Today, she is a bank teller, author, blogger, musician, junior college graduate, and still has her mare and dreams of showing competitively. I am now a country wife and busy mother, an author and a blogger. I don't think I could have written the book without the inspiration of Kmarie, and the support of my husband.
While I don't have that mare anymore (since I sold her in February), I do have dreams of competing in the rodeo circuit occasionally (if that's even possible...) and breeding Thoroughbreds of my own. I plan to adopt an Off-track Thoroughbred in the near future to replace Sue J as my riding horse since Jack is pretty well retired and Dingus is actually my husband's horse. For both Kmarie and me, horses will be in our lives as far as we can see.
We have both found good men. Even great, if I can brag about my husband at all. Hehe. Her sweetie supports her, and while being a bit wary of her horse-craziness, he helps bring out her creativity and joy. Mine enjoys seeing what my writing skills can do, and is up for anything I can do with a horse -- simply making sure I'm still grounded while I'm doing it.
Kmarie and I took slightly different paths, but in the end found the men who helped and are helping us find ourselves. Soon we will be swapping stories -- not as a young woman and a young wife, but as two young wives enjoying where God has taken us. Her life will always be different from mine, but that's awesome. She can carve her path, and I can carve mine.
No matter where life takes Kmarie and her man, I will be watching, observing, willing to advise and learn in turn. Marriage is glorious, and the craziest ride she will ever have. Her fiance is getting the wildest piece of Texas he could find!
It's hard to believe that nine years ago, we were both little girls with crazy dreams and silly mares. Today, she is a bank teller, author, blogger, musician, junior college graduate, and still has her mare and dreams of showing competitively. I am now a country wife and busy mother, an author and a blogger. I don't think I could have written the book without the inspiration of Kmarie, and the support of my husband.
While I don't have that mare anymore (since I sold her in February), I do have dreams of competing in the rodeo circuit occasionally (if that's even possible...) and breeding Thoroughbreds of my own. I plan to adopt an Off-track Thoroughbred in the near future to replace Sue J as my riding horse since Jack is pretty well retired and Dingus is actually my husband's horse. For both Kmarie and me, horses will be in our lives as far as we can see.
We have both found good men. Even great, if I can brag about my husband at all. Hehe. Her sweetie supports her, and while being a bit wary of her horse-craziness, he helps bring out her creativity and joy. Mine enjoys seeing what my writing skills can do, and is up for anything I can do with a horse -- simply making sure I'm still grounded while I'm doing it.
Kmarie and I took slightly different paths, but in the end found the men who helped and are helping us find ourselves. Soon we will be swapping stories -- not as a young woman and a young wife, but as two young wives enjoying where God has taken us. Her life will always be different from mine, but that's awesome. She can carve her path, and I can carve mine.
No matter where life takes Kmarie and her man, I will be watching, observing, willing to advise and learn in turn. Marriage is glorious, and the craziest ride she will ever have. Her fiance is getting the wildest piece of Texas he could find!
We love you and we're here for you. Both of you. May God bless and keep you!
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