MBW

If you read my last post you were able to look back in time and read about the birth of two people. First and most obvious is Chris, my now 5-year old son. But second, you also saw the birth of The Family Man. At the risk of sounding mushy and entirely un-masculine, holding my son for the first time changed me in a profound and fundamental way. I’m not sure, even now, I can truly articulate those changes, yet I recognize them clearly. I am a much different man today than I was the day before he was born.

Yet it occurs to me, and perhaps it has occurred to some of you as well, that there is another person who played a very important role in this birthing thing. Obviously I did not give birth to Chris. And as much as I would like to complain about the sore back I had from sleeping on the floor the evening prior to Chris’s birth, it’s clear that my wife went through a much longer and more painful process to bring him into this world.

I’ll bet she didn’t know that she was giving birth to two people that morning.

Anyway this blog has mostly been about Chris and Tommy, and as the narrator I manage to give myself quite a bit of screen time as well. But the more I think about it, the more I realize I’m doing my wife a disservice by not describing her role more thoroughly or creatively. In many posts she isn’t mentioned at all, and when she is, it’s a minor, walk-on part.

My wife is no walk-on. She’s a leading lady.

So in this post I will formally introduce my wife. And in keeping with our recent trip down memory lane, today we’ll reach back even deeper into the mists of time, all the way back to when The Single Man met The Woman of His Dreams.

Believe it or not, it was a blind date.

If you read Hello, Old Friend you could have picked up on the fact that my previous relationships were not so great. When the last one finally ended I decided it was time to try something different. I took a 10-month sabbatical from dating and focused on getting healthy, mentally and physically. I hit the gym hard, and spent a lot of time contemplating what I wanted out of the rest of my life.

The gym work did wonders. I still, to this day, don’t think I’ve figured out the rest of my life.

Even so, at the end of that period I felt I was ready to meet some new people. But going back to the bar scene seemed like the definition of stupid – doing the same thing over and over, hoping for a different result. And Internet dating really hadn’t gained any traction or credibility at that time.

Instead I approached three of my male friends who were married, guys whose wives knew me. I asked them if their wives had any single friends who might be interested in meeting a guy like me. If they knew of anyone, I suggested we go out on a double date and I would pick up the tab for the group for the night. This would provide a safe, less stressful first-date environment and with two couples, there would be less of that awkward, no-conversation, “what do I say now” time.

As luck would have it, one guy came through.

We did a double date, dinner and a movie. It went pretty well. Having the other couple there made things easier for both of us, I think. We were able to fall back on them for conversation when those pauses came up. The woman I met that night was intelligent, articulate, and attractive. She was easy to talk to, fun to be around.

Believe it or not, at the end of the night she agreed to see me again.

We went out two more times. It also was a coincidence, but we belonged to the same gym, and we saw each other there one night. I suggested we go out for a quick bite to eat after our respective workouts, and she agreed.

I’ve heard people talk about what happened next, but I never believed it. Old wives tales, wishful thinking. The stuff of fairy tales and romance novels. But that night, in some no-name diner on a busy boulevard in our town in the Rocky Mountains, it happened to me.

I sat across the booth from her, nibbling on a grilled cheese sandwich, and I fell in love. Boom. Just like that, I knew this was the woman I wanted to marry. Had to marry. Would marry.

I wasn’t looking to get married, mind you. My clock wasn’t ticking. Oh, sure, something else was ticking, but that had ticked with pretty much every woman I’d ever dated. That kind of ticking got me into plenty of trouble – the kind of trouble my cat had to get me out of. What I was looking for was a fun, normal, stable relationship – not the carnival, freak-show roller-coaster affairs I’d had in the past.

But instead, I found my wife. And I found her after knowing her for all of three weeks.

It would take four more years for her to reach the same conclusion.

Back to the diner. I’m sitting there, the realization is hitting me and I’m thinking, okay, what do I do now? So I want to ask her something deep and meaningful, so she knows I’m a deep, meaningful guy. And klutz that I am, I blurt our something really stupid:

“So what do you want to do with the rest of your life?” I ask (or something like that – this was over 10 years ago, remember).

She doesn’t hesitate for one second. She doesn’t ponder, think about it or stumble through something really dumb. She looks at me, her beautiful brown eyes clear with conviction, and says, “I want to make the world a better place for children.”

Well, shit.

I knew she was an elementary school teacher. Kindergarten, in fact. I knew she had a Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education and a Master’s degree in Family Studies. I knew she had a job, just like everyone else. But she had more than a job.

She had a mission.

And me? Right about now, I have a headache.

It gets worse. She then asks me, “And what about you? What do you want to do with the rest of your life?”

See, this is where it’s clear that I’m an idiot. Because not only did I ask this question, I didn’t anticipate that she’d ask me the same thing. It’s only polite, after all. And I’m completely unprepared to answer, especially now that she’s come back with her answer that is so altruistic that anything I say will sound trite, materialistic and selfish in comparison.

Which pretty much accurately describes me, I admit. But that’s not going to get her father to walk her up the aisle and hand her off to me. And now that I know that is what I want, I’d better come up with something good.

Luckily, I have a knack for thinking on my feet, and I’m reasonably good at pulling words out of thin air and stringing together random ideas. I pause for just a second, and this is (something like) what I said in response:

“Well, right now I’m doing pretty much what I want to do. I think I have a great job. It’s exciting, every day is different, and I love seeing my work on TV every night,” (at this point in my life I’m a TV news cameraman).

But I know this is not going to get it done, so I continue, “…and I like to think, in some small way, I’m helping people keep up with what’s going on in the community. But long term I know I want to do more with my life, so I’m looking at going to grad school and getting an MBA. I have a lot more potential than I’m using right now. I want to make sure I can be a good provider for a family someday.”

I watch her closely as she takes this in. I actually had, once or twice, contemplated grad school. Sometime far in the future. I’m not sure I can even get in. But if she buys off on this I’ll probably have to follow through.

She nods, smiles. The conversation continues, luckily down a less serious path. I think I’ve dodged a huge bullet here. Whew.

We begin dating more often, at some point exclusively. I think we crossed a threshold one evening several months later. We’re sitting in a movie theatre before the start of the show, when she points to a couple a few rows in front of us. They are cuddling and canoodling, just carrying on, and she says, “You can sure tell they’re dating.”

“Oh, and we’re not?” I say, in mock sadness. “What are we, good buddies? Best friends? Pals?”

“No, you know what I mean!” she says.

“Actually, I don’t…maybe you’d better make it a bit more clear, PAL.”

“Okay, wise guy, I’ll show you after the movie,” she says.

And she did. It was definitely more than dating.

Still, it took four years to get to the proposal point, and another year of engagement. Finally, in the spring of 1999, the deal was sealed.

During that period of engagement we negotiated the details of the union. Where we would live, where we would not be willing to live. Number of children, timing. Financial goals. We were candid and honest with each other. Fortunately we were on the same page for most of the issues we discussed, and we reached compromises on those that didn’t match exactly the desires of one or the other. So come Wedding Day we knew, as much as any couple can, what to expect from each other and together for the next several years.

Which, with all that settled and out of the way, made for a great honeymoon.

We went to Maui. I’m told, by others who’ve been there, that the beaches are very nice.

So who is this woman, my wife? She’s smart, compassionate, and still committed to making the world a better place for children, especially ours. She’s still teaching Kindergaten. She has many friends, but not the time to see them as often as she’d like. She’s well read, but not as well read as she’d like (see previous sentence).

She’s a great mom. Chris and Tommy are two lucky guys. Patient, kind, and caring. She’s just wonderful with them.

You’ll notice I haven’t said much of anything about how she looks.

I’d be skeptical of any guy who told me he fell in love with a woman after three weeks, and the first thing he says when you ask him to describe her is how good-looking she is. That says to me he’s thinking with his small head, the one without a brain in it.

Now it just so happens that my wife is hot. But now, having read this, you already know the important qualities about my wife, the ones that made me fall in love with her in the first place. The ones that will last for the rest of our lives.

But in the interest of good journalism, you probably deserve a physical description.

My wife is tall and slender. About 5’ 8”, long legs, narrow waist. Brown eyes, brunette. Her beautiful, languid brown eyes sparkle with just a hint of mischief. Her lips are full and she has a captivating smile. Perfect teeth. It’s summertime here and she tans very nicely.

Nice tan lines.

She wears her hair fashionably short and I love it that way. When she comes home from the stylist with her brand new ‘do,’ it’s all I can do not to grab her, drag her into the bedroom and part her hair right down the middle.

Did I just say that?

Anyway, usually she makes me wait until the kids have gone to bed.

Oh, and did I mention she is six years younger than me?

So there it is. The description of my better half. She will play a more prominent role in this blog going forward, I would imagine. You can see why I love her. And why I will refer to her from here on out as My Beautiful Wife.

MBW.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. And perhaps now you’ll have a better appreciation for my closing remark.

It’s great to be The Family Man!