In the beginning...

Luke and I had been married for a little over a year, he was gone rodeoing and I was home (my very new California home) alone for the first time since we’d gotten married. We had moved into a new house a couple months before and I was still trying to find my footing in my new life. One night I got home from work, it was already dark out, it was pouring rain, and it was freezing inside our house. I had this electric space heater that I’d plug in and huddle in front of to get warm since there was no central heat in the house. Well, that night I plugged it in and I must’ve gotten too greedy to be both warm and watch television and it blew the main breaker. Not really a big deal, right? Except, I had no clue where the breaker box was in this new house. I had no flashlight of course, and it was long enough ago that cell phones didn’t have them either. So of course I called Luke. And called Luke. And called Luke. He didn’t answer. At the time, he was sponsored by the U.S. Army and they had flown him down to South Padre Island for, you guessed it, College. Spring. Break. It was bad enough that I knew where he was, which was certainly not wet, cold, dark, or lonely, but at some point when I was searching every pitch black closet and corner for the breaker I had missed a call back from him. Frustrated and freezing I listened to the voicemail he had left. It was hard to hear him over the music and rowdy crowd in the background (this wasn’t starting well) but he shouted into the phone “I think you tried to call and I didn’t hear my phone… *mumble mumble - something I couldn't hear ...I’m with all of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders!!” (this wasn’t ending any better than it began) “ I’m turning my phone off now I’ll try to call you tomorrow. Love you.”. 

It’s ok to laugh here. It’s funny... now. 

In that moment though, I found it far less amusing. I remember so clearly standing there, shivering, and just starting to cry. Nothing quite like standing alone in the dark, hundreds of miles from your family, at 22 years old, while your new husband hangs out on an island with professional cheerleaders to make you question your life choices, amirite?

Pinky swear I don’t still constantly dwell on this event all these years later (remind Luke about it at opportune moments? Oh, for sure) but it serves as a pretty perfect example of what our rodeo-centric life is like. It’s a long distance relationship on steroids. I’ve often thought that the best way to describe us is that we live lives on parallel paths.  We are headed in the same direction and both want to get to the same destination but are having very different experiences of life along the way. The days when I’d be dealing with bed sheets covered in puke from a sick kid or elbow deep in dirty diapers and work deadlines, never seemed to fail to be the days when Luke would call, on top of the world from some big win he’d had. Of course it goes both ways. Luke would have those inevitable days full of flat tires, crippled horses, and tough losses and then call home to the news that he had missed one of the boys taking their first steps or saying a new world. I’d feel delirious and sleep deprived from being the only one around to ever be up with crying babies and he’d miss my call because he was napping. I’d get to cuddle in bed with our sweet boys every night and get the goodnight kisses and he’d be up alone driving all night to the next one. I get to live a lot of the ordinary, everyday moments that make life truly great - and he experiences a lot of those spectacular, once in a lifetime moments that most people only dream of. Very rarely have we gotten to do these things together.

In this lifestyle we’ve chosen there are far fewer ‘shared moments’ and a lot more ‘living vicariously through’ the other. I had to give up a lot of the ideas I had when we first started out about what our life together was going to look like. I was probably pretty naive about how much time we would be apart and what that would actually look like. What that would actually feel like. We were both so young and pretty clumsily trying to figure out how to be married, and although we loved each other a HUGE amount, the truth is we weren’t all that good at it. I will say this; it was my natural independence, refusal to give up, and the love I had for rodeo from a lifetime before I ever met Luke, that saw me through some of those harder days. If I had I gone into our marriage without any real understanding of what it actually takes to be out there, how much work you put in, how taxing it is mentally and physically, how relentless and long the rodeo season can feel, I’m not sure how I could have gotten through those first years.

A lot of time has passed since we first started out, back when every we day spent apart felt like uncharted territory. And a lot has changed. We’ve changed. Our family has changed. Rodeo has changed. Cell phones have flashlights. I’d certainly like to think we are a lot better at this whole being married thing by now. We have both learned so much, much of it the hard way, and have been able to come out the other side better than we were. As individuals and as a husband and wife. I’m really proud of how hard we fought for that.

Listen, too many nights in a row without Luke in bed next to me are always going to feel lonely. I’m always going to have check my FOMO when I miss one of his big moments and I’m always going to hate the look on the boys face when he has to leave. But I also think that the trial-by-fire, that is the nature of being married to a rodeo cowboy has made us damn near close to unbreakable. We’ve had to make good on every one of those marriage vows that’s for sure! Watching him and all that he's accomplished has pushed me to be better, think bigger, not give up. And I hope that our years together have left no doubt in his mind that I’m always going to be in his corner - in or out of the arena.

By the way. The breaker box was in the garage behind the washing machine.