Expiration date

Published: March 29, 2021 / Updated: March 29, 2021 Vilma Life in the USA: The Ugly

‘Sleep’.

That is the answer I gave once when asked what was my favorite thing to do. And I was being serious, too. ‘Sometimes I sleep till one or two in the afternoon. And I love it!’, – I had gone on and on. I wish I could say the same today. Most of the time I wake up (but try to keep my eyes shut for as long as I can) before sunrise, just listening to the never ending chatter-box next to me.

The day after the wedding sleep was the last thing on my mind. My husband, used to getting up just before noon for a shift at the restaurant, also didn’t object to waking up at 4 am and setting off to Disney World in Orlando. We didn’t need beautiful beaches for our honeymoon. We had the wild beaches at our doorstep. We didn’t need tropical weather. We had plenty of sunshine in Hilton Head Island. I guess unconsciously we just wanted to have loads of fun and feel like kids one last time, before starting our life as a married couple, i.e. adults.

We came back from our honeymoon happy and in love. We were husband and wife, we were a union, standing strong. Except we weren’t.

All the signs of trouble re-appeared, after hiding temporarily in the shadows of the wedding. My husband lied to me numerous time. I remember him sneaking out in the middle of the night and re-setting the mileage button in his Jeep. I would know, too, as his lies were making me borderline paranoid. More than once he borrowed money which I never got to see, I only got asked to pay it back. I started to feel helpless and trapped. The more I moved, the more questions I asked, the more he lied, the tighter got the trap.

Fights continued. They had never stopped. We even had one on our wedding night!

One afternoon in the middle of the argument my husband just took off his wedding ring and threw it out of the car window while driving. I begged him to stop and searched the ground feverishly till I found it.

I gave my husband a video player (quite a novelty piece back then!) for Christmas, so he could watch his Star Wars movies. The chef was the biggest fan, even owned a Darth Vader‘s mask. But whenever I offered to watch an episode with him, he would find an excuse not to. I found it extremely odd and by then I was overly suspicious. I pressed and I pressed till he admitted he had sold it.

In the words of my most loved artist out there today, we all have our Expiration date:

But every woman has a day when she gets tired of the games
And she gets tired of being played like she’s a toy
She finds the strength to up and leave
And she wakes up and finally sees
That you ain’t nothin’ like a king, you’re just a boy

You’ve reached your expiration date, yeah
You’ve reached your expiration date

– Sammie

I soon would have reached mine.

The wedding

Published: March 22, 2021 / Updated: March 22, 2021 Vilma Life in the USA: The Good

I’m hoping you’ll forgive me. I’ll let my pictures do the talking today. Yes, they are blurry, but so is the memory of my wedding day. More than 15 years have passed.

I do remember, though, that there was laughter, there was joy, there were tears of happiness. We ate, we danced, we kissed, we hugged, we said ‘I love you, my husband’, and ‘I love you, my wife’ numerous times. It was a good day. I got the wedding on the beach of my dreams.

Getting ready in the morning…

Letting Kristina do the last touch ups before leaving the house…

Going for THE kiss…

Receiving a phone call from my mom with congratulations…

After ‘the good’ and ‘the bad’ there was finally peace – the wedding.

But then came ‘the ugly’.

Ready

Published: March 15, 2021 / Updated: March 15, 2021 Vilma Life in the USA: The Good

Kristina was here. The one who started it all. The other Kristina was also here. The one who spent the summer in Petoskey with me and braved the cold winter there, too. Amongst my sister, my mother and myself, we would call them the ‘tall Kristina’ and the ‘short Kristina’. Years later I met Christine, an amazing woman all around. That made things even more complicated and listening to my stories my sister would often interrupt me: ‘Which Kristina are we talking about here?’

Back in HHI the two friends were the only family by my side on my big day.

They missed out on my bachelorette party, but took part in the bridal shower. Both events were lots of fun and step by step brought me closer to my wedding. Still, I found it hard to believe that I was the bride to be. I don’t think I understood back then what marriage was all about. I needed 20 more years of good and bad experiences to start getting an idea what it truly meant to be married. What I understood was ‘the wedding’ and I knew exactly what I wanted.

I had always dreamed of a wedding on the beach. In reality, having older people walk on sand and complain about it was not something I wanted to deal with on my big day. So we planned the ceremony and reception at Country Club of Hilton Head.

And the photo shoot on the Dolphin-Head beach.

The mother of the Chef got his side of the family to help decorate the Country Club. The wedding colors were sand, of course, and blue, or shades of it. I consider myself a lover of the sea and the sky, indulging limitless shades of blue (occasionally indulging 50 Shades of Gray, too).

The Chef had planned the perfect menu and I ordered the perfect cake. Not only it was finger licking delicious, it was decorated with real seashells to go with our ocean theme. It was perfect!

The music had been carefully selected. Mostly by my husband to be. I was more into the cake business (see above) and let him be in charge of the songs. He had put a great list together, our song being Just the Way You Are by Billy Joel.

I had done all the scrubbing, waxing, toning and pampering that I could possibly do, and after numerous visits to my hairdresser’s, after a lot of trial and error we had come up with the festive yet beach appropriate hair do.

I didn’t trust anybody with my make up. I was certain I’d have too much of it on and wanted to stay as close to natural as possible.

I was ready to spend the rest of my life with this man. Or was I?

The rocky road

Published: March 8, 2021 / Updated: March 8, 2021 Vilma Life in the USA: The Bad, Life in the USA: The Good

Let’s be honest here. I’m not the best driver in the world. I’m not the worst, either. Hilton Head Island that fall had the bumpiest roads for me.

The plantations on the island are beautiful and with lots of recreational areas. The houses are huge, but so is the space between them. The mail boxes, however, are dotted along the streets right on the road for an easy mail delivery.

It all started with me driving my precious Jimmy (GMC) one day and knocking one of those mailboxes down. I had no excuse! There was no squirrel on the road and I was not being distracted by my cell phone (we are talking years before that became a norm). I did knock it down. And I didn’t even stop! I kept driving, doing a ‘hit and run’ number, trying to escape the neighborhood which was very close to home. I got scared, of course, although there was no reason to be. It’s not like I had hit a person! I kept thinking about it the whole day and on the home, as I slowly passed by the house, I saw that he mail box was up, like nothing had happened.

By that time I was a bag of mixed emotions and couldn’t hold it inside anymore. I told my future mother in law about it and she talked to the neighbors. Bless them, they were easy going and very understanding.

The Lexus driver was not.

The day before the wedding the Chef took my Jimmy and I had some errands to run. We are talking about ONE day before MY wedding, so you can imagine… The Corvette, of course, was out of limits for mere mortals like myself. I had no other choice but to drive the massive Dodge Ram pick up. Don’t get me wrong, I love how much space a truck like that gives me when I’m a passenger. It’s a different story when I’m the driver. I remember feeling like I was in the ocean, the truck was MASSIVE!

I managed to drive to the mall without knocking any mailboxes down. I managed to park it. I also managed to scratch a Lexus while doing it. You can imagine my nerves, can’t you? Come on, I was getting married the next day! I didn’t need this. I kept panicking and thinking: ‘This is not good! This is not freaking good!’

Gratefully, the same tiny girl who felt lost in the ocean behind the Ram’s wheel had a big mouth, a sweet smile and a heart warming story to tell the driver, who accepted my money and let me go… Breath in, breath out.

Do they say the rocky road leads you to hell or to heaven?