perspective.

so last night I was given some unexpected perspective. DJ and I spent three hours in the emergency room at Emory after work last night.

spoiler alert: don't freak out, we're both fine [and so is baby j].

anyways, DJ has been having some chest pain over the past few days and just wasn't feeling right [also, his grandfather died of a heart attack at 33, which is just petrifying]. I told him that I trusted his intuition and he knew his body and what it was telling him. basically, I'd rather shell out the dough now and get some tests run and know what was up or have some relief that he was okay than both be anxious about it until he could get in to see his doctor. so we headed to Emory's ER.

in my prior life as a Residence Coordinator ["RC"] I spent several weeks a year on-call for the university I worked at and responded to the hospital [when on-call] whenever a resident student was transported... hence, I feel like I've become quite the expert on ERs and had a good idea that we might not leave with answers. as the ER doctor we saw last night put it - emergency rooms are good for ruling out a lot of things but not necessarily diagnosing. and that's what happened.

so long story short - tests were ran, everything came back normal enough and DJ is going to have to do some follow-up with his general care doctor. the real perspective came last night when I tried to go to bed. to say the thought of something seriously being wrong with DJ kept me up was an understatement. I just kept thinking about how I can't imagine my life without him anymore - on my birthday we went for a walk at a local park and were talking about how I've known him for over half my life [he's been a part of 16 out of my 29 years... crazy] and how when I'm 36 I'll have known him 2/3rds of my life -- and then DJ did some terrible math to figure out the rest which we just couldn't get and we just laughed and laughed.

cheesy as it is - he truly is my best friend, partner and love. he's my other half. he's going to be our sweet little girl's "daddy" and the best dad in the world, I know it. I've said it before and I'll say it again - our marriage is not perfect, he is not perfect, I am definitely not perfect.  but we truly are perfect for each other [most days, hah]. I know I take him for granted at times and that we definitely have our differences, but he is a great husband and friend.

I am so thankful that everything came back normal and I can't imagine what I would do if they didn't. like, I have no earthly idea what I would do. I can't imagine going on this journey of life without him -- experiencing parenthood, the mundane joy of putting away laundry, laughing ourselves to sleep [or on some terrible nights crying], making dinner [aka him changing my recipes], yelling at him to put the toilet seat down - the random idiosyncratic of living your life along side another... I can't and don't want to imagine the thought of not having those moments together big and small.

all in all, some unwanted but great perspective on life, love and luck. I'm one lucky girl in so many ways.

two crazy kids twelve long years ago....

a few degrees, a plethora of late night phone calls, one trusty magical trip to wal-mart, a broken engagement and loads of other "relationships" later.... still my best friend, still my soulmate...

I know, heavy post. just what was on my mind and heart today.