A Song of Love and Life

To tell the story of how Game of Thrones impacted my life, would require more than the amount of words allowed for this piece, so I'll make this one short and sweet... For starters I didn’t know about GOT until it was well into its third season. I was still a die-hard Walking Dead fan.

In fact, I learned of its existence through a news article indicating a distasteful rape scene between brother and sister, AKA Cersei and Jaimie at Joffrey's funeral. For which I was like eeewww, but I didn’t have HBO at the time either, so I couldn’t check out the show. I am an avid reader, (although I haven't read the GOT books), and frequent my local library, where you can check out DVDs as well. It was here that I found quite possibly the savior of my relationship. With that being said, I must give a back story.

I promise it'll be brief. I have been with my partner for almost 19 years. We have three awesome kids together, unfortunately, LIFE finds a way to wear you down, and step all over romance. We are a working-class family, with little time to rest or be anything more than glorified maids at home as well. {mom was right, sex is bad} lol, Needless to say, my partner and I had grown apart…

Well back to the library, someone donated the first four seasons of GOT on DVD, and so, in July of 2016, we began a new chapter in our crazy lives. I started the series on my own one night after putting the kids to bed. He came in the living room, and asked me what I was watching. After I told him he was less than enthusiastic, but sat down next to me and played a game on his phone. After a bit I noticed him watching with me, and he even asked me who some of the characters were. We watched an episode a night until reaching the end, and saw Arya sail to Bravos. "Valar Morghulis..."

We had to have more. Having fallen in love with some characters, and learning to hate others, we fought over houses, and outcomes, and who was better than whom. In that time, we learned how to talk to each other in more than just short descriptions of our days, and to tell of kids' stuff, or to say that we were of milk, etc.

Communication is key in any relationship, but after so many years of the mundane day to day, had both run out of things to say. A new venture of finance reworking was in order to pay for HBO, and cut out a few other extras in the house. From then on, my partner and I found each other again in small conversations that started with the latest episode, and drifted into plans for our future, thoughts on new things to help our offspring with education, and what not. In a sense, it felt like we were dating again, learning about one another, as if for the first time.

My amazon account was hit hard for birthday and Christmas presents for each other that were GOT themed. As we chose houses, banners, clever sayings from the show, and so on… Our children got involved as well with stuff for mom and dad. My kids are a bit too young to watch many of the episodes—my son who is nine has seen just two of them. The one where Dany burns the Lannister army, "The Battle of ‘Goldroad'", and the one where Cersei blows up the sept, 'Baelor’, I believe it was called. I waited to write this after the series finale, so that I would have a complete story to tell. Unfortunately, the deadline is days away now, and I am a bit rushed, still very happy to share some of my little life with others. When I heard about this contest Via Facebook, I jumped at the opportunity to put a bit of love into the world, {something we ALL desperately need}, regardless of the cash prizes involved. {Although a little extra $stew$ is always good}. Hee Hee...

Thanks for reading, and thanks HBO for a great show.

“And now our watch has ended”…