I am moved in, I have new friends, my old friends as well, but if I want to see them I need to go to Lynn, which works cause my Mom is still there. We had a great routine worked out, we had the kids alot, we wanted it that way and it worked out . We had them pretty much every Thursday after school until Sunday nights, there was the random weekend they were with their Mom and I usually made my plans to see friends then. It was perfect, we had it all.
On Sunday's my Mom came over and Charlie's parents came up and we had a big Sunday family dinner, sometimes I felt like I was playing house. Like I was watching someone else do all of this. This wasn't me, Sunday's were for sleeping late, eating pizza and watching football and in the summer for sleeping off a hangover on the beach. Now I was in my own home, I had 3 kids, I loved cleaning and cooking and taking care of the kids and laundry, when did this happen? I really did enjoy it so much, so did Charlie. For him I think it made his life seem a little back to normal, it was hard for him not to wake up with the kids everyday, so it was the little things. If I had learned nothing I learned that the kids would always come first, I was a close second but they were and always will be his main priority. I was good with this, having divorced parents myself I understood this and respected him and loved more because of it.
I think for me not being able to have children, it made me appreciate his children all that much more. All I had ever wanted was to be a Mom, I wanted 5 kids. Honestly, meeting Charlie and being part of his life and his children's lives was the next best thing and the best thing that ever happened to me. It still is! Even now, the relationships I/we have with the kids is what I had always dreamt it would be. Well, they really aren't kids anymore they are 20, 22 and almost 24. Jeez, it has been an amazing journey and it is an incredible feeling knowing I had a little something to do with the adults they have become. It is a good feeling when Beth calls for advice on men, fashion, or friendships, or just to talk, I used to try to hard and Charlie always told me "less is more", he was right! It all came around. Some of my favorite times are my talks with Dan, he has a lot of wisdom for 22, I find myself the most open and closet to him. I enjoy a healthy competition with Tom, both of us like to be right!! When we all go out to trivia with him and a group of friends and our friends, everyone is amazed how smart he is and I love to watch him and Charlie debate and sort out the right answer. We also have a little football pool between me, Charlie and Tom, nothing makes me happier than beating him and Charlie, so far I am 5-3, I think it kills them.....they think I cheat, they think I take whatever the ESPN reporters pick, I mean I do look at what they pick But I make up my own mind. Maybe.
Charlie and I talked about marriage and trying to have a child, at that point I wasn't sure I ever wanted to get married again.
After several miscarriages and an ananencephalic pregnancy during my first marriage, I was told I had a 2% chance of ever carrying to term or having a viable healthy pregnancy at 23 no one is able to really comprehend this information. Still after talking it over with Charlie and my doctors and having some genetic testing done without positive results we made the decision that another child was not in the cards for us however being a little older and somewhat jaded I was able to grasp the information better. Charlie was so supportive and I know in his heart he would have tired if I really wanted to, but he had 3 healthy happy children, he was done. I am sure he was somewhat relived that the choice was taken out of our hands. When I was 23, everyone from family, friends Priest and strangers told me God had another plan for me. Telling a woman who all her life wanted 5 children this seemed like the most ludicrous thing I had ever heard! Now being told again, I sit and cry with Charlie, he looks and says well, "my kids love you and they need you" "already you have opened your heart to them and given them so much". At that moment I thought hum? Is this what I was meant for, I mean if I had children with my Ex, we may have stayed married, but even if we didn't I would not have been out "trolling" for a husband at softball fields,or even open to dating a man with kids, so maybe this was my plan. I do like to believe in fate and it makes me feel better to think all 4 of them where my destiny.
I truly had it all, I mean I missed the whole bonding and giving birth experience, but I had the next best thing. I had an instant family. I was helping raise, guide and make my own special bond with his 3 children, I was lucky they were great kids and very easy to love. I had my time with the kids and Charlie as a family, yet Charlie and I still had plenty of couple time and with his schedule on the fire department I had time to myself. It was perfect, I didn't need a ring or piece of paper that wasn't going to change what we had. I already loved the kids as if they were my own, we have a few friends that have often told me they could not have done what I have done with someone else's children to me it was the most natural thing in the world. I am not sure Charlie would have had it any other way. Whomever he was going to be with needed to understand that or it was never going to work and for me I would not have had it any other way.
We were surviving the holiday rush and got the news that his EX had gotten engaged. Around the same time mutual friends of ours whom had been together just as long as us asked us out to dinner, us ladies where chatting and talking about marriage and she and I had, had the same school of thought we didn't need to do it again or so I thought a few days later her and I are talking as she had read in the paper of an 86 old man passing away and it said "survived by long-time-companion" at that moment she said that will be us. I thought oh God that is awful, I don't want to be "long time companion, I want to be "his wife" she said so do I. Let it be said that although they are still together, they have not gotten married yet! For me, I mean if I was going to get married again Charlie was perfect. He was my soul mate in every way possible. I then started thinking why didn't he want to marry me? This kind of thinking can drive anyone crazy, since I didn't far to go this just about put me over the edge.
New Year' Eve 1999, I thought this was the perfect time to discuss our future, it was going to be 2000, a new decade. Right after midnight I said to him, "I think we should get married" his reply: "Lisa, I need a computer for the business, this to me was the "I love you", thank you all over again. Really?? A computer? Wow. Ok, so I guess I knew where we stood, so now what? I had stop, I could drive myself crazy with this, and the timing I didn't need him to think just because his Ex got engaged that I now need too. It was that damn obituary! I felt my best course of action was to ignore the whole thing. 2/14/200, out to dinner for valentine's day and meeting friends for drinks, on this day of love one of his buddies thought this would be a great time to ask us when we where getting married,I mean it had been 2 1/2yrs. I replied with a straight face, "oh, no Charlie needs a computer, that would be a little big for my finger" A silence feel over the room. I guess I wasn't as funny as I thought. It then became the running joke, but one night I said to him, I really want to get married again and I want it to be to you, but if you're not ready or won't be ready I understand but I should go. He said he really didn't know if he wanted to be that vunerable ever again, I got that, I had been there. It had been years for me. Charlie and I started dating a few days after he had moved out. I knew he need time but I was ready. We talked and talked and I said I am not going anywhere tomorrow. I guess the next day was ground hog day, because we both put the "talk" behind us and moved on. We joked from time to time but I need to let it go. I would give it another year, I didn't tell him, I just kept it in the back of my mind, Charlie was and is not one to do something just because you want him to. I knew how much he loved me, I knew how happy I made him and he made me and the kids, they had added so much to my life, would I really just go?
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