Don't Blame Me, STea Made Me Do it

Porwest usually does not do writing prompts, nor does he do challenges. It's just not his thing, you know. He can write from the heart and he don't need no stinking prompts. Or at least that is what he likes to believe. So if you will entertain his claim here he would greatly appreciate it.

He is a mighty master of the pen, if you really want to know.

By the way, why I am writing in the third person? I am me. Or he is me. Or something like that. I am pretty sure that the he is me, and he is Porwest, and I am Porwest.

Okay, so I will admit that part of what we do here is not meant to be all serious and what-not, but to also have a little bit of fun too. I mean, I write some very serious stuff here, right?

Well, again...just entertain me will you?

So, our fellow read casher (what in the world do we even call ourselves around here?) @STea tagged me in one of her posts, Hear me out! (read.cash), and so I thought why not just let my guard down a bit and give it a go?

What do I, or what does Porwest have to lose? Nothing, right? It's just another post. It's probably fun. Screw it, let's just go ahead and do it.

There are 14 questions asked here, and I will try to do my best to answer them to the best of my ability. It is curious that she said there were 33 questions but I only saw 14. But no worries. 14 are probably easier to answer than 33.

Would you rather me cook you breakfast in bed or a candlelit dinner?

Now, don't get me wrong here. My wife makes the best meatloaf I have ever had in my entire life (sorry, mom). It's just that good. But it is also the only thing she makes. She is just not a cook. I swear, if I did not preset the setting on the toaster for her, she'd burn a waffle for crying out loud.

So I will pass on whatever concoction she might dream up either to serve me in bed or by candlelight at night.

Unless it is a meatloaf. But who wants meatloaf for breakfast?

I am the cook in the house, so I will simply pass on this one. I would rather her do neither since I value my health and well-being, and don't want to spend any intimate moments we might have reeling in pain and heaving into the toilet from whatever she might try to feed me.

If you are having a bad day, would you want me to leave you alone or spend time with you and cheer you up?

I honestly do not compartmentalize well. I try my darndest to not be a jerk when I am not particularly happy about something. But I am also human. I need me time. And a good time for me time is when I need to separate myself from everyone else's needs and just focus on my own.

I don't mind solace. But most of the time I just need time to unwind and refocus, and in those moments I don't necessarily want to be cheered up. I just want to figure things out. And that is something I usually feel the need to do on my own.

What lessons have you learned from past relationships?

People are nuts when things go badly. I mean, the ire and angst and the vitriol can be uncanny when you think about it. One minute you are making passionate love and you are the star of their world, and the next minute they are in the backyard carefully looking over instructions as to how to build a foolproof guillotine to end your very existence.

And more often than not they are using your credit card to buy the materials!

What are some annoying habits of other couples that annoy you the most?

Overly lovey-dovey stuff. I swear some people just make me want to puke. Especially if they have been married a while. Life just isn't like that. It's not all lovey-dovey. Believe me, if you have been married to someone for any length of time, it is not a romance novel. Sure, there is romance. But all the time? "He's my little dream-boat."

Makes me want to puke.

I just prefer for people to be real. Marriage is finding that special person we wish to annoy for the rest of our lives. Just be real and show me that and don't try to pretend that you are living some sort of fantasy no one else enjoys the reality of.

It's fake and pukey, and it irritates me.

What kind of parent do you think you'd be?

Honestly, this is an area I think I would have been good at if God would have allowed my wife and I to be parents. But it was not in the cards. We planned to have kids. My wife got pregnant twice and miscarried both times.

We had a discussion at the time. Try again or just allow things to be what they were?

I wanted to try one more time, and I think the final try would have stuck. But my wife was not able to endure another loss emotionally. And so we mutually agreed that we would not be parents.

Sure. We have some regrets from time to time. But it was our decision together, and we are fine with it.

But I know that I would have been a dad who would have encouraged my son or daughter to pursue their own dreams and desires. And I know my wife would have made one hell of a mother. Hands down, no doubt in my mind.

For whatever it is worth, we will never know. But the kids we lost are forever in our hearts and our imaginations as to what they would have become, and what joys they would have added to our lives.

I am not a religious guy at all. But I do sometimes like to believe that one day I will get to meet them and hear them call me Dad.

Would you rather be known for your intelligence or your good looks?

Well, Heaven knows that good looks will never be in my world. I often liken myself to one of those trolls who lives under a bridge asking why you are there. So, let's just say that despite any lack of good looks at least my brains work well enough to make up for it.

My wife always tells me that I have a "cute, round butt." She never says anything about my face. So, I am not sure what that means. But she has told me from time to time that I also have brains in my butt.

Is this a compliment to my intelligence? I really have no idea, but I like to think that I am at least smart enough to make up for the lack of my looks.

Hey. I chose her, right? That must have been a smart thing to do.

If you could ask me anything and have me answer truthfully, what would it be?

Am I a good husband? Because I certainly try to be. But I am also human. And I am also me. I can only be who I am, and while I try to bring to my wife's life attention and love and caring and honesty, I am still human. I am still me.

Is it good enough? Am I making you happy? Is life with me what you thought it would be when you accepted my hand? Am I fulfilling the hopes, dreams, and desires of the life you accepted with me? Have I left you any doubts or any regrets?

If I said to you, Sweetie, that I was leaving tomorrow, would you be sad? Or would you be relieved?

How would you want to spend a special day with each other?

Every day is special. Sure, life is life and life can sometimes be mundane and predictable, and even humdrum. But we have always said that life with each other even in the dullest of moments is special because that's the vow we made.

Through thick and thin, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer.

That is the promise we made to each other. That it matters little what we do, or where we are, or how adventurous or boring it is, that the fact that we do it together makes every moment special. It makes every moment worthwhile.

It matters little to us what we do so long as we do it together.

Do you think celebrating Valentine's Day is corny?

Actually yes. We do. Part of that is probably because I am cheap, and I have trained my wife well to be cheap right along with me.

In honesty though, we know we love each other. And we don't need a date on the calendar to remind us of that. We tell each other we love each other many times throughout the day. We text when we are work about it. We kiss and we hug often.

Every moment together, alive and breathing, and living our lives together is Valentine's Day.

"Forever mine" is not just something printed on a heart-shaped piece of candy. It is what we commit to every single day of our lives. If there is only one day a year to celebrate that, then we have seriously missed something about our relationship along the way.

What is the best relationship advice someone has ever given to you?

"There is still time to run." That's what one of my wife's cousins told me during my bachelor party. We did laugh about that, because let's face it. It was funny. But he also told me, "If you have no desire to run, then you know she is the one."

I had no desire to run, and I have no desire to run now. We met in 2005, and we married in 2007, and I would not change a thing. She is as much the love of my life today as she was when I first realized that my life could never be complete without her in it.

Would you compromise your happiness for the success of the relationship?

Isn't that what marriage is? My happiness is her happiness. If she is not happy, how on earth could I ever be happy?

I still like to do what I like to do. Don't get me wrong. But throughout the years I have always modified what I do to in order to make her life as fulfilling as I promised her that I would.

That takes some sacrifice. But to me, it is worth it.

Do you think that a couple's finances should be separate?

No. I do not. We are in this together.

Look, at the end of the day I am in full control of the finances. I am the bread winner. I am the one with the most money knowledge. I am the one who makes the investments, pays the bills, and grows the loot. We share everything. But I am in charge.

What is the biggest cause of divorce? Money. So, having one person in charge of it just makes sense for the health of the relationship. But there is a caveat here. The person in charge of the money has to know how to manage it and grow it otherwise it does not work.

I am the one who knows how to make money work for us, and that is the reason why I am in control of it.

What are your biggest fears about relationships?

Really, the biggest fear for me is am I doing enough? Am I being the husband my wife wanted me to be, or that she hoped that I would be?

As I have said before, I am me. That did not go away when I said I do. But I did know, in that moment, that I would have to compromise some of who I am. Because when you say "I do," it is not about you anymore. It is about us? "We" becomes a big part of what you do and how you do it. Life is no longer singular, but shared.

My biggest fear is that I am not sharing enough of me with her to bring the most joy to her life that I can. My biggest fear is that I forget about the we and the us, and focus to much on the me.

And the longer you are with someone, the easier it can be to lose sight of that. It is just the way it is, even if it is not the intention.

Do we remember the first thing we said to one another?

"Hi, my name is Dawn." That is the first thing my wife said to me. My wife worked with my mom at Walgreen's. They were both pharmacy technicians. My mom apparently talked about me quite a lot, and Dawn got wind of it.

One day my mom showed her a picture of our family, and she asked who "that guy" was. My mom told her it was her son. Me. And somewhere along the line she started asking about me. And then she asked my mom for my number.

And one day she called me. And that's what she left on the message. "Hi, my name is Dawn." And the rest is history.

In conclusion.

This has actually been a bit of a fun exercise. And I thank @Stea for making me do it. Conjures up some memories, and it makes me think of a few things that maybe I had not thought of in a long while.

It also makes me appreciate even more what I have, and this wonderful life that I have with my wife in it.

I got lucky. There is no doubt about it.

I have a woman in my life whom I care deeply about. And she cares deeply about me. We have a wonderful life together, and it is a life I would never trade for anything. Even for all the money in the world. Even if I was the richest man in the world, if I did not have this woman in my arms, I would be flat broke. Worthless. Undefinable.

Life would not be worth living if I did not have the opportunity to share it with this woman that, 14 years ago I saw come up the aisle to the altar to take my hand and tell me, "I am forever yours, babe."

I love you, Sweetie, with all my heart. And I am forever yours too. Until the last breath I take, I will never love another like I have loved you, and as I love you now.

Lead image by Porwest. Orginally posted on noise.cash. Vacation Chronicles (noise.cash)