My wife, Stephanie, and I just got home from a rare date... Mom and Dad came over to watch the kids for us so that we could celebrate the 10th anniversary of our very first date...
It’s hard to believe that we have been together for 10 years... I’ve never been in a relationship with someone for 10 years, so every day is resetting the record...
As spring approached in 1999, I was just starting to come out of the worst year of my life... 1998 was an utter disaster in all areas of my life, which led to about a six-month stretch of epically self-absorbed and self-destructive behavior that has doubtless shaved a few years off of my lifespan... By the time I rang in 1999 with my sister and some of her friends, I had pretty well worn myself out, and I desperately needed something positive in my life...
On March 14, 1999, I joined several coworkers after work for some drinks at a bar across the street... One coworker in particular caught my eye... She was relatively new to our large department, and I hadn’t had much of a chance to talk to her at work yet... As we socialized at the bar, I discovered that I really enjoyed her company...
The next night, I took her out on a date...
I opted for the safe dinner-and-a-movie route and told her to choose where she wanted to eat, and I’d see what movies were playing... I’m not sure why, exactly, she chose the place that she did (I now suspect it might have been pity on a guy who she knew was struggling to rebuild his life), but she convinced me at the time that her favorite place to eat was McDonald’s, and that’s where she wanted to eat that night... So we did...
Then we went to the movie that I picked: “8 mm”, starring Nicholas Cage... For those who haven’t seen that movie, what I thought was a standard murder mystery turned out to be a movie about snuff films... Snuff films are basically pornos involving bondage and sodomy so extreme that it results in (or at least appears to result in) the death of the woman...all on film... As I recall, the opening scene of the movie was especially graphic... I was absolutely mortified to realize what I had chosen for our “first date” movie and imagining what kind of message it was sending to my date... Amazingly, Stephanie did not take a bathroom break and never return... Perhaps my mouth hanging open in absolute horror clued her in to the fact that this was just as big of surprise for me as it was to her...
She stuck with me through that awful movie choice, through future terrible movie choices (such as the night we stayed in, and I rented two movies--both of which turned out to heavily involve white supremacy themes--from Blockbuster that I had picked solely on who was acting in each movie), through some rough patches as I struggled to deal with old skeletons in the closet, and when I had to work two jobs just to cobble together enough money to afford a pot to piss in... She stuck with me when I inadvertently took the Lord's name in vain in front of her very religious and proper mother...the first time I met her... She stuck with me when we rented our first place together--a poorly-constructed duplex where the rent 9 years ago was $150 more a month than our current mortgage--right next to a sewage treatment facility and a very busy set of railroad tracks... She stuck with me when I nearly starved her to death, working up the courage to ask her to marry me... She stuck with me through exasperating, gut-wrenching, soul-crushing attempts to conceive a child... She stuck with me through all the typical knot-headed things that a thick-skulled caveman like myself puts her through...
And ten years later, we approach our 8-year wedding anniversary, we have two out-of-this-world daughters together, we have a comfortable house in a terrific neighborhood, and I’d say we have a pretty darn good life together... It’s certainly an exponential improvement over my life 10 years and 1 day ago...
So how do I show my appreciation to this woman who has been by my side, through thick and thin, for a decade? On our way to the matinee this afternoon, we stopped at McDonald’s... And what movie did we see? “Taken”, starring Liam Neeson... It was a good movie, but when we learned why the main character’s daughter had been kidnapped--to be forced into some sort of sex slavery ring--and my chin dropped to the middle of my chest, I could hear Stephanie snicker a little bit next to me...
Some things don’t change in 10 years... I still can’t pick a movie worth a damn...
But by God, she’s still with me in spite of it all...
I love you, Stephanie...
My first movie with my wife was "Dreams are Made of These" with Robin Williams. While it wasn't offensive, it was AWFUL! AWFUL puts a damper on the whole date-thing.
ReplyDelete1998 happened to be a watershed year for me too. It happened to be the year I met my wife. She also considers our relationship a "record breaker." This is terminology that bothers me slightly, like there is a possibility that she may try to break the record with someone else.
Hey Cousin! I enjoyed reading this post. It's always fun to hear how people meet their spouses. Remind me never to have you recommend a movie for me. :) Congrats on 10 years together!
ReplyDelete