There is a rule that people stick too and I should stick to but I don’t, about being a smug bitch and the curse that is attached to it.
But I’m not scared of the ‘smug bitch’ curse.  I don’t believe in it.  I’ve broken it way too many times to take it seriously.    
  
I love my (I know, I know, I know, I won't shut up about it) husband and he loves me.
On the 29th of August 2016 it will be fifteen years since the day we met.  Our meeting was amazing because it was in the stars.  The moment he walked through the door I knew that prick was going to be a love of my life and he knew that this slutty tart (I was sitting at a table with my best mate surrounded by men)  would be his.
He, the ballsy bastard just walked over and pulled a seat in between me and the guy I was negotiating into a shag and said hi.  
I mean, just like that, ‘Hi.’  
I actually can’t remember anything I said apart from calling him ‘cute guy with glasses’ as I was calling the other guy ‘cute guy’ yeah I know, I’m sooooooo articulate.
I remember the night like a string of shiny beads.
He sang Daniel by Elton John.  He could dance like a sexy mother-fucker and when he took off his glasses his amazing eyes shone like hazel lightbulbs.  He was cute as a basket of furry kittens, honestly. It was sickening.  
The stupid thing was that, I knew, I knew, I knew he was the one.  Knew it down to my bones, (I’m an ample lass, that’s quite a long way) 
 But I didn’t trust it.  Because good things don’t come along often, and I never recognise them when they do; not right away anyway, not until they were on their way out and waving from the horizon.  So when my mate and I went to leave it was my mate who gave him my number, not me.  
The karaoke bar was called the ‘Winchester Club’ in Lower Hutt.  I lived in Petone with my daughters, in an apartment, over a shop and my bedroom was next to the town clock.  I mean it was right outside my window.  I remember tick tock, tick tock,  ding ding dong dooooooooooooooooong – arrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhh.  (I became addicted to sleeping pills in that apartment.)

I woke up the next day very excited but hang-over-y and told my daughter Jenna-Rose that I met a guy in a Bar, he lived in Lower Hutt, he was from Christchurch and he worked in a supermarket.  
She was not impressed in fact she clapped her hands to her face and said with a look of horror, ‘OMG you like a bogan?’
‘Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, opps, yeah, I guess I do.’

He called the next day.  We talked for hours and hours, and I only hung up because I didn’t want to snore in his ear. Then he called the next day and we talked for even more hours.  On Saturday night we went on a date and my brother James came with us.  He decided he was going to be my chaperone and spent the entire night calling Scott Steven, Trevor, Kevin and Bruce, just to be a prick.
Scott was even cuter than I remembered and he put up with all my brother’s shit, which, if you know my brother, is amazing.  
We called, talked and by the next Wednesday we were totally fucking crazily stupidly in love.

That was fifteen years ago...This is now.


Me and my cute guy with glasses

Along those 15 years there have been shit storms aplenty but we have never, never, ever not loved each other, that’s a constant.  We made an agreement once we were married we would never do the storming out of the front door, I hate you and I never want to see you again thing.
We find more excitement and pleasure in each other’s success than we do in our own.  
I am brutally horribly honest with him and he is with me.  Which as you can imagine has never boded well for him because frankly I can be evil, but then, so can he.

Now…

We were married for ten years on January the 14th this year, and we were going to do this huge marry each other again, have a party carry on, but Scott got terribly sick and I freaked out.  We cancelled everything and he spent his Christmas holidays being whisked into hospital twice and feeling like utter shit while I paced the house chewing my nails down to my elbows.
Sickness, especially his, scares me.  
As a woman who lost one husband, losing another one would be—paraphrasing Oscar Wilde—really careless.  
I am getting better (that’s a lie)  but I am still terrified if he gets even a sniffle.  I go crazy, I can’t—just thinking about it makes me nauseous—I can’t lose him ever, ever, ever!  

When you find a guy who calls every lunchtime to say hey;  who can leave you alone when you want to be alone (which is most of the time for me); who can tell you the truth about your writing and risk getting his face punched in.
Who trusts you completely.  
Who made your son his son and put up with fifteen years of the kids crap.  
Who messes up and forgets shit and then answers your accusations with “sorry, I’m useless and irresponsible and its all my fault” even when it isn’t…he’s a keeper.

Oliviaxxx