Diary of a Country Girl

Chapter Six

Dear Diary,

Life is finally back to normal. The last few months have been totally crazy. Getting my degree, the trips to Tartosa and Cuidad Enamorada. And the tornado. That still haunts me. I grew up here and severe weather is nothing new. But I still hear it in my dreams. At first it terrified me. I’d wake up sweating, or screaming, or both. Tre would snuggle with me and comfort me afterwards. 

Now the fear has passed for the most part. I still wake up with my heart beating fast occasionally, but I don’t feel the terror. I think now its appearance in my dreams is metaphorical. Maybe now it's showing up in my dreams isn’t to scare me. Maybe it’s not foreshadowing something bad. I feel like the storm has become a metaphor for changes that are coming for Tre and myself. Changes that will alter our life and our plans. More recently I’ve woken up feeling almost optimistic. Or maybe that’s all 'hocum' as my dad would say and I’m finally coming to grips with that night.

Speaking of grips, winter still has one on us. The warmth of spring can’t arrive soon enough. In the meantime we have been spending our evenings browsing websites looking at floor plans for the big ranch. We’re getting ideas for making a nice home for Peanut, Nashville, and Spirit too. We’ve settled on building a barndominium style house for ourselves. We haven’t yet settled on an exact floor plan. We decided that whatever floor plan we choose we want to include space for children right from the start. 

The conversation with my mom and Consuela at the reunion stuck with me. Tre and I have discussed starting a family many times. We both agree that the time isn’t right. We want to be parents but there are things we want, and need, to do first. Honestly, the more I think about it the more excited I am about being a mom. When I came home to Chestnut Ridge marriage, and motherhood, were the furthest things from my mind. I wanted to paint, and travel, among other things I’ve always wanted to try. Just me and Piccolo. 

Now I’m a married woman and it’s been the best decision I ever made. I thought Tre was out of his mind bringing up the subject of marriage out of the blue like he did. Some stranger calls him up and says he’ll get an inheritance if he gets married within a week? I was head over heels in love by that time. I was already thinking he was the one. But it all felt like he was falling for a scam. It created some doubts for me. But my heart kept telling me Tre was the one. It turned out to be legit. And now looking back if it had been a scam I still wouldn’t regret marrying Tre. I would have regretted not marrying him more. 

We’ve set off down a path together that’s soon going to lead to a family. When I was toiling away at my web design job in San Myshuno I was really unhappy. I felt unfulfilled and empty. Like there was a big hole in my life. Back then I thought coming back home would fill it. It did at first. Then I met Tre and I realized that the hole was from not having anyone to give my heart to. Tre filled up a lot of that emptiness. Our children will eventually fill the rest.

Enough about that. We haven’t spent all of our time picking out floor plans or talking about parenthood. We’ve spent time training for Mt. Komorebi.

Tre and I decided it would be best to keep that a secret from our parents for now. We are adults but I can only imagine the reaction that news would get. I can hear my mom now, “Aurora Michelle Westbrook have you lost your mind girl? Don’t tell me I raised a fool, ‘cause I know your father and I would never raise any fools.” 

We do have some good news to share with them though. We have something special planned once we’re settled in the new place. We're going to renew our vows on the ranch, but our friends and family will be there this time. It's not gonna be some half-baked spur of the moment thing in a scraggly field out back with just me and my boo. But there's an awful lot of work to do before that day. Like building an entire ranch!