grandma and grandpa

This weekend im at my grandparents house in houston for the weekend. My grandpa and grandma have a great history. Both of them grew up in the middle of nowhere kansas. They met when they were 17 and 19, got pregnant and got married. Grandpa was a refridgerator repairman and salesman with a killer personality and smile that made his customers swoon. Grandma worked retail at JCpennys, and they had my aunt when she was only 18. They had it hard for a long time, strugglin to make ends meat. And one day, as my grandpa puts it, Grandma wanted to see "space more than his face", and she took off. She was young, free, she felt like she had never experienced the fullness of her life. She needed to find out who she was. Oh how well i understand this feeling. And my grandpa didnt treat her as well as he should have treated a wife that you dont want to run away.
25 years passed......they both married again. Grandma married fat Tony.....a fat man with a bbq restraunt that he enslaved her in running singlehandedly almost immediately after they were married. I remember we went to visit them in arkansaw a few times for thanksgiving, and it was all barbeque barbeque barbeque!!! and tony sat there and grunted while grandma catered to us.
Grandpa married Ginny....the lost grandmother of my childhood. Her and i used to make snickerdoodles together, and she took me shopping and bought me a little silver bracelet with american flags dangling from it at a cute little boutique on the outskirts of houston, and took me to tea houses and plays. I remember thinking that she was so elegent, so beautiful. I really loved her.

In the meantime, grandpa got a job with waste management down on the bottom scoopin trash, and he used his wits to get up to a manager position. Over the years his charm and smarts for business werent overlooked, and he went up up up to president of government relations in the whole company. ANd while he moved up up up, he and Grandma Ginney got farther and farther apart. Seems like somehow money always does that to people. I always loved to go to their beautiful home....i sat in the comfy chairs and marveled at the mahogany grandfather clock in the front hall. I used to imagine late at night when it chimed that it was part of a fairy tale, and that i would find some secret passageway in that house that would lead me underground to a forbidden secret.

The day grandpa sat us down at chili's to tell us that he and ginny were getting divorced, i already knew. No one had told me, i just KNEW. i knew that look. i had been through that talk twice already. I knew the drill....take the kids to a nice restraunt to break the news. And i just remember these words...DIVORCE, and 'she doesnt want to see you anymore' i wonder if those were ginny's real words. I still belive that shes out there. and that she thinks of me. wonders what im like all grown up...and if i still have that little red and blue bracelet.

Then the next thing i know we are having a 'family reunion'...the first one of all time at a hotel in fortworth. Our extended family isnt even close...we just dont HAVE family reunions. And my real grandma came all the way from arkansaw. She hadnt been happy with fat tony for years, and grandpa had a plan. He and grandma reconnected, and he helped my grandmother run away from tony's house to her mothers. She left everything she owned, and when he came looking for her in a horrible rage, she hid. After 25years, grandma and grandpa were remarried, and are very much in love it seems like. And NOW they arent poor. Grandpa rebought everything for her, and more. So crazy the things that life throws you.

And this story just feeds into my question: how do you really fall in love, and not fall out? How is it that people have it, and it just slips through their fingers like sand. And you try to grab on, but it just keeps slipping right in front of your eyes, and you arent able to stop it. I dont want it to slip away.
THe other day my brother asked me: "emily....are you EVER going to get married!? cause it seems like you just keep running from it. its never that people dont want to marry you. its that the idea turns you off i think."
me: its on my to do list alex. ill get there. :)
Because he knows that i used to be that girl....the girl who runs. And i dont want to be. I know i need to be brave. and trust. But i know that i deserve something big. A person that, when we are together, we change the world. People should be jealous of us because of what we have. And the whole world stops and you cant breathe. BUt you dont sink....you swim. And when you see that person, you just feel that you belong together. I Know that this exists, and that i will find it. But only because i believe in it....i believe in miracles. And it doesnt end....ever.