Moving right along...

I can never decide if i want to write using a time line or just talk about what I want to talk about when I want to talk about it. So, I may bounce back and forth between the past and the present. Lets get outta the 80's and 90's for a bit. I'll fill you all in on Brian, my husband.

He walked into my life in November of 2006. I was working at the prison then as a Library Technical Assistant. He as most of you know is an inmate. My boss had hired him and when he walked into the door that whole light shining down from heaven angels singing thing happened. He was BEAUTIFUL!  Tall, muscles, clean cut, very groomed even for being in prison. One problem....he wouldn't talk to me. He kept his eyes on the floor and whispered when he talked. He came in everyday and did his work, studyied for school or read his bible when work was done. During this time I had befriended another worker of mine that would laugh and joke with me every day and after a few months Brian began to loosen up towards me after seeing I wasn't and asshole. We began to talk more and more everday and I learned alot about him. He had been in prison for 16yrs at the time. He was serving 15 to life for 2nd degree murder. He was the driver in a drive by shooting back in 92. His crime partner, the shooter, got 25 to life. I learned that he had a daughter, she was 17. He had been 17 when his girlfriend had her. He had married his childhood sweetheart, they had been together since they were 12 and divorced in 2000. He was a devout Christian. He was brilliant, he was kind, he was driven, he had dreams, he was brutally honest and he was wasting away in prison for a stupid decision he made when he was 19. We talked about his mom and dad, his sister, his niece and nephews. He blushed beet red if the subject changed to anything remotely sexual, even if it wasn't me talking. He blushed all the time. I think that was what initially attracted me to him. Even though he was 'Hard' from prison, he was a teddy bear core. As time went on I got to see the many different sides to him. He loved old school 50's doo-wop music, classic rock and country. A hispanic ex-gang member from Los Angeles listened to country!! He would sing at the top of his lungs in the worst singing voice I had ever heard and not care that everyone hated it, he did it cause he liked it and it made me crack up!!
One day as we were getting ready to leave he called me into a back room. He said, "Tina,(this was the 1st time he had ever used my first name) I cannot leave today without doing this." He kissed me. My heart stopped. I completely froze. Holy crap I just lost my job! Fuck it! I kissed him back. I knew at that moment that I loved him. It had been almost a year to the day that I had met him.
Christmas time came around. We decorated the office, played games and even had a gift exchange between the workers. It was so much fun. One day during lunch he asked if he could stay behind because he had a surprise. By then I no longer saw him as an inmate, I didn't see the Blue color of his clothes, I had stopped seeing that a long time ago, I only saw the man. I let him stay behind. He told me to go into the bathroom and wait 2 min then come out and go back to my desk. I did. When I went to my desk there was a rose there and a little note that had a call # to a book. I went and found the book and inside there was a card. I'll keep that little bit of heaven in my head, because his words aremine to keep. There was another note that said to go into another room. When I opened the door to the room on the wall the was a sign that  said "I Love You" and it was all lit up with book lights. Lol and there he stood in the corner. He said, "I am in prison, I can't hold you at night, I can't be there with you on the weekends, I don't have money, a car, nothing to offer you but me. My heart, my mind, my soul. I love you and I want us to be together.  All I could say was, "OK" He cried then too. That was the 1st day of life as I now know it....