My wife and I met on December 19, 1999. We became a couple that night, and have been a couple ever since.
Our first four years, nine months, and fifteen days together were spent in the relationship minor leagues. We started out in Class A, getting a feel for the whole “having someone else as a part of my life” thing, before moving up to AA in the spring of 2002 – that was around the time I visited GM Pollack & Sons at the Fox Run Mall, picked out a ring with a diamond in the middle and sapphires on either side, and made the first payment on her engagement ring.*
*Even though I worked in Cooperstown that summer and brought home a paltry $200 a week as an intern, I managed to get the ring paid off and in my physical possession by Christmas. As was our eventual custom, we spent Christmas Day with my family. My older sister, Jennifer, has always liked my wife and was giving me a hard time all day: “So when are you gonna do it? When are you gonna marry this girl? How long are you gonna make her wait?” And so on. She didn’t know about the ring – she was just being a nuisance. Finally, I looked at her as sternly as I could manage and said, “Come with me.” We went upstairs to my room, where I’m sure she thought I was gonna lay into her, which would’ve been awkward because I can count the number of times I’ve ever yelled at my sister on one fist. But no, I didn’t yell. I just walked calmly over to my filing cabinet, dug out the hidden ring box, and showed her.
Jen’s eyes just about bugged out of her head. She looked at the ring, then at me, obviously having no clue what to say.
“So you see,” I said, “I’m planning on asking Vicki to marry me. I don’t know when, or how, but I am planning on it. You all just have to give me some time.”
She nodded her assent, we went back downstairs, and she looked properly chastened as we told Vicki how I had yelled at her for placing unwanted pressure on me regarding this highly personal matter.
I don’t know if I grew up in my big sister’s eyes that day, but I’d like to think so.
The promotion to AAA came on March 19, 2003 – the day we stood in front of the silent fountains at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas at one o’clock in the morning and I asked her to marry me. In other words, the scariest day of my life. It was definitely happening in Vegas – I had smuggled the ring through airport security in my pocket, lest our luggage get lost and my plans dashed (looking back, I’m amazed that I thought of this possibility. I’m usually the most absent-minded, “fly by the seat of my pants” person in the world). An attempt had been made at dinner earlier in the evening, but I was forced to abort when it proved too difficult to physically access the ring – it was in a fanny pack-type thing I was wearing, which was tucked underneath my shirt, which was tucked into my pants, which made it nearly impossible to reach. So, as we made our way around Vegas later that night, I decided: it was Bellagio or bust.
We were out there for at least an hour, by ourselves (they turn the fountains off at midnight or so and people stop flocking), while I worked up the courage to pop the question – fittingly, I passed the time by asking her random questions about baseball history. I think I mentioned the first World Series about 14 times before she asked to go back to our hotel, forcing me to get down to business:
“Okay, two more questions, then we can go.”
“Alright, two more questions.”
“Okay…do you love me?”
“Of course.”
“Willyoumarryme?” (That’s really how it came out – all one word.)
[shocked] “What? When?”
[realizing we ARE still in Vegas] “Well, not right now. We’ll set a date eventually. You realize you haven’t said “yes” yet?”
“YES!”
And…scene.
Almost eighteen months later, on September 4, 2004, we finally reached the majors when we were married at St. Patrick’s Church in Nashua. It was a strange feeling the night before, knowing that I was about to get married, but at the same time I didn’t really feel as nervous as I thought I should. We had our rehearsal dinner at Holman Stadium, where my boss cut my parents a great deal on the use of a luxury suite for the night, and went back to the hotel we were staying in (my parents were staying at our apartment). My groomsmen decided I was nervous – I still say I wasn’t all that worried - and took me out for one last drink as a single guy, a drink that I never appreciated until just now, when I wrote “single guy” and realized, “Wow, that really was the end of an era in my life – and it only took me four years to figure it out.” We went to Applebees. After, they took me back to the hotel, where I laid on the floor and talked to my brother until he fell asleep.*
*There were three of us sleeping on one room that night - me, my brother, and one of my other groomsmen. There were two beds. Somehow, I, the guy getting married the next day, was given two options: sleeping in a bed with my brother or sleeping on the floor. I still have absolutely no idea how this happened, but I do know this: no matter how nice the hotel, the floor is not a comfortable place to spend the night.
As I stood at the altar the next day, my brother by my side, waiting for Vicki to appear at the end of the aisle, I had no idea how I was going to react when I saw her. Now, four years later, I understand that it wasn’t important, because I remember the way SHE reacted when she saw ME, when she started walking down the aisle and came to the realization that this was it, this was the moment she had been waiting for forever.
She looked happier than I had ever seen her.
That’s a remarkable thing, to see someone you love and care about more than anyone else in the world attain that level of happiness. It’s even more remarkable to step back and realize that YOU’RE the reason she feels that way, that she’s walking down the aisle on a cloud of air, glowing like a light bulb, face adorned with a huge smile, tears of joys filling her eyes, because this is the day she begins the rest of her life with YOU, and that is the most exciting feeling she has ever felt. I mean…wow. Everyone should know how it feels to not only have that effect on someone, but to see it with their own two eyes. It's amazing.
It’s been four years since our wedding day, and I can say without the slightest doubt that the past twelve months have been the most trying time of our life together. (Think Clay Buchholz in 2008; you throw a no-hitter as a rookie, then toss up a 2-9, 6.75 crapfest the following year.) We welcomed a child into the world, which was easily the most fantastic moment of our lives, but at the same time, you’re never as ready to be a parent as you think you are, and Joey’s birth put a strain on our relationship. Vicki was learning to be a good mother, I was learning to be a good father, and in our efforts to do that we forgot how to be good partners. I told a friend recently that husbands and wives shouldn’t be allowed to divorce until their children are at least two years old, if then. When you consider the stress you’re both under up to that point, plus the fact that you’re constantly changing as individuals anyway, the chances of making a rash decision are just too great. I mean, I got to the point where I could totally understand why guys run out on their wives and kids – you get crazy, all the worrying about money and the future and whatnot, the world closing in on you, and before you know it you reach a breaking point and out the door you go.
Funny thing, though: I can’t live without her. She’s been my life for so long, our lives are so inextricably tied together, that I just wouldn’t even know what to do if we weren’t together. It would feel wrong, somehow. Yeah, there are times I need my space – maybe I want to have a weekend on my own, or go to a movie by myself, or sleep in on a Sunday – but those are only momentary needs. Over the long haul, day in and day out, Vicki and Joey are my life.
She told me once, when we were having a particularly tough time about three months ago, that sometimes she looked at me and felt like she didn’t know me anymore – or, worse, like she had never really known me to begin with. At the time, I agreed. My life was in a state of upheaval and I wasn’t sure how well I really knew myself. Well, I’m still not sure exactly who I am or what I stand for in this world, but I now feel comfortable naming at least two parts of my identity, the two most important parts: I am a husband, and I am a father. If I stick to those, everything else will fall into place.
Vicki and I haven’t laughed a lot over the past several months – there have been more smiles lately, a lot more, but not nearly enough – but I have a goal. Remember that feeling I described above, from our wedding day? The feeling that someone is deliriously happy, has reached the absolute highest state of happiness that a person can achieve, and you are the reason? My goal is to try and remind Vicki about that feeling as much as possible. I want her to look at me every day and say to herself, “This is the man that I love. He makes me happier than anyone else in the whole world possibly could.” I think that’s a good goal.
Jim Valvano, the old North Carolina State basketball coach (I know, I’m switching it up from baseball to basketball, but Jimmy V is one of my heroes), once said, “If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.” I want to do that with Vicki, every day for the rest of our lives. I want each of us to work hard to make the other a better person and a better parent. I want people to look at us in fifty years and say, "I want what you two have."
I think we can do it. Because when we’re good, we make each other float on air.
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