I guess I sort of left you all hangin’ with the Irishman, huh?
God bless that crazy, ridiculous man. He has given me carte blanche to blog about him. I have license to say anything I want. (Really, babe? Anything?) (I don’t know who I’m writing to there in those parenthesis because he swears he’s never going to read this. We shall see…)
Anyway, this permission isn’t new. It’s been in effect practically since we started dating. That makes me laugh because most men I dated had the complete opposite reaction when they found out that I had a blog.
But it’s been hard to write about my darling man because, you know, we’re a work in progress here. I’m no Pioneer Woman, who can recount how she met her cattle-ranchin’, chaps-wearin’ husband ten years ago and then write a “bodice ripper” from the perspective of an assured happy ending. I can’t promise you a multi-part installment finale detailing our (gulp!) big white weddin’. I can’t give you sweeping panoramic photos of our ranch, detailing everything from how to make a great pie to how handle cows. I’m never going to give you sweet pictures of our jointly-made children, because this here momma went out and got herself spayed like a dog.
So I guess if I’m pioneering anything, it’s the Single Momma Lifestyle. We Single Mommas are a huge demographic. We move through the world very differently and we especially date differently. So what can I give you?
I can’t tell you about being a sweet young thang and meeting my Prince Charming, but I can give you an honest look at the exhileration and the terror of getting out there and looking for love again, kids in tow. I can’t tell you about how my heart raced every time I saw my cattle ropin’ Marlboro Man, but I can tell you about how I think my Irish stockbroker is the manliest man I’ve ever met (the dude can put a roof on your house, knows how to milk a cow — God bless rural Ireland — and can move a billion dollars across the world in a matter of minutes). I can’t tell you about making out for hours on his porch that overlooks the prairie, but I can tell you about sneaking upstairs, giggling, for a quick smoochfest while our kids watch TV.
In addition to being the manliest man I know, the Irishman is also darn romantic — so much so that it took me weeks to stop wondering if he wasn’t perhaps the best liar I’ve ever met. “Who are you?” I’d ask. “Who talks like this?” After nearly five months and many, many whispered sweet nothings, as well as many sweet somethings, I’ve managed to squelch that impulse a bit.
So I now I believe all (OK, most) of those things he says. But I hope I never get used to hearing them and will occasionally still have to ask, “Who are you? Who talks like this?”
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