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| 2008. Still cooler than me... |
Believe it or not, there are fights. Knock-down-drag-outs that can really cause a
stir. Because a good relationship (from
my decade or so of experience with the fairer sex) requires some rough times. If you aren’t prepared for that, steer clear
of the marriages and the long-term commitments, and all that.
However,
the importance of such relationships, the kind that stand the test of said
rough time, should be noted as easily the most incredible thing you’ll ever
experience.
My wife has
repeatedly asked me to write something about her. Not for
her…but about her. I consider
everything I write/think/do as being about her, and will continually credit her
as an important paradigm shift in my creative life. So, for you…on your birthday…here’s something
about you.
I don’t
think telling anyone how I met my wife really sums up how I feel about
her. Really, nothing does. The concept lacks a synapse firing properly
from my brain to my language center. I
am hard-pressed often to describe how I feel about her because processing all
of that into a single sentiment seems so trite to me. So I pass off, with a shrug of my shoulder,
”She is…very cool.”
It’s all I
can really muster, unfortunately.
While I’m a
reasonably gifted writer, a decent enough conversationalist, and not-too-shabby
dancer (all subjective), all of these items become unreasonably convoluted when
the subject of my wife comes up.
Why? She’s a lovely woman. She is curved in all the right ways. Her eyes angle perfectly off her face. Her actual pupils change color, something I
noted when we started dating, and have never quite understood the phenomenon. Whatever color her eyes are depends on the
refraction of light exposed. It is…quite
breath-taking.
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| I had strep throat. She was just pretty. |
And her
personality: She’s passionate, fiercely
loyal, wonderfully sympathetic…these are all qualities that I’ve admired, held
as personal goals, stood in terror of (Passion can be a temper on occasion, it's cool!), even lusted after only to be let down most times.
But not
with her. Not by a long shot.
My father
and I discussed this when I was 21. I was (and for those of you who know me best, you will know what I refer to) not proud of what prefaced this conversation, but it had to be said from my end. I was facing a very lonely existence, and I was coming to accept that...but I wasn't sure if I was ready to dive in, so I went to someone who knew better than most the pros and cons of diving into anything: My father. I
asked him why he married my mother, on the most basic level, and how he knew
he’d be married to her still. It made sense to me because I grew up in it, but I suppose it might seem a bizarre thing to see my mother, this vivacious, charismatic,
singing-for-no-real-reason force of nature to be married to my cerebral, down
to earth, quietly strong father. He
looked at me while we sat outside, drinking scotch. He smiled, kind of slyly, like it was this
secret he was keeping from me for 20 years.
‘Alex…’, he
said, giving an ‘ah’ after a sip from his tumbler, ‘…it’s very simple. She’s just, deep down, a very good
person. And that’s all you’ll ever
need.’
It was a
moment I carried for some time during Andrea and I’s first months
together. As RA’s at San Diego State, we
had no shortage of annoyances. But even
when Andrea and I both bitched about how little we cared for our jobs…at the
end of the day, she’d still be back at her apartment, helping prepare the next
big program or helping some young teen govern their sense of self-worth.
I had kind of known
since I met her...but it only took me about 3 days to know this was the woman I was
going to spend my life with. I’m very
much like my father in that respect.
Andrea’s
heart is filled with wonder and light.
It’s something I haven’t fully understood or been able to wrap my head
around yet. I race behind her
constantly, trying to catch up. For all
the brilliant things she’s written about food, her mother, me…I’ve barely been
able to muster a sentence about the meaning of her to me. I’ve always thought my strength as a writer
lied in being miserable.
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| Our first moving day. Remember??? |
When I was
21 years old, I met a girl who showed me there are better things to write
about.
I could say all the cliché things
there are about love and the feelings you have for someone so important to your
way of life, you’d die every day if it meant she’d live forever.
But in truth, for the rest of my
life, in moments where we fight over things large and small, and try to find
our way back to neutral…I will always be able to remember how good she is. Good for me.
Good for the world. Good on
toast. Good on a burger. Good for my writing. Good for my reasons.
So Andrea…love of mine…from me to
you…I finally was able to write something about you! I think?
It’s not great…but it’s close. We
just had a bad fight and it’s odd how you and I write passionate things to each
other when we’re either mad or have just finished being mad. Perhaps that’s where our strength as a couple
lies?
In so many ways, for the rest of my
life, I will be chasing you around, praying you don’t figure out what a chump I
am.
My Favourite Book...
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| Great Night. Just a couple o' kids trying to make it honest. |
