Girl and I have been married for just a bit over 10 years at this point; just under 10 when we found-out she was preggers. With a little less than two months to go, our already long and rich life together is about to get a soft reboot. Our duo will very soon become a trio; something I and friends and family thought might never happen. They say it will be the best day of my life, and at the risk of sounding way schmaltzy, I find this hard to believe; since finding out Baby was on-the-way, it's been hard to complain, how can it get even better?
I'm getting ahead of myself though; this is a love story and here I've jumped straight to the punchline.
Beau Meets Girl
It all began back in Seattle in the late '90s. I was working for an e-commerce business where I met Girl's sister. Sister and I got along pretty well and I must admit that I even had a bit of a crush on her for awhile. It's probably why, in-part at least, I was so amiable to her offering me her sister.
I remember her walking into my office one day...
"...Girl will be living with me this summer between semesters and I think you two would get along. Would you be interested in meeting her and showing her around?"
My reply was pure cheese:
"Is she cute?"
'Yes.'
"Is she single?"
'Yes.'
"Sure, I'd love to meet her."
Once she got to town, I called her. I introduced myself, let her know my roommates and I were en-route to a concert and invited her along.
Even if I grow grey and addled, I hope I never forget walking up to the door that night. It's a lovely Seattle evening; the front door hangs wide but the screen door is pulled tight. As I walk up, I see this petite, lanky, brunette draped across the couch on her stomach, watching TV in the living room; probably Matlock or perhaps a rerun of Charles in Charge, its hard to say. I knock, smile, say hello and, without scarcely moving at all, she motions me in. Girl MOTIONS me in!
"Oh, farmboy, fetch me that pitcher..."
I'm a hopeless romantic, I always have been; I'm hooked.
We go out to the car where my roommates are waiting, she hops in and just strikes-up conversation like she's always known us. No hint of pretension, uncertainty or hesitancy; just real Girl, being her real self. It will come to be one of the traits I admire most in her. Once at the Showbox, Calobo takes to the stage, the concert starts and we all begin to boogie.
My good friend Frito once said "Beau will know when he's met his mate: she will be the only other person on the floor who dances like he does."
Another friend once compared my dancing to the imagined gyrations of a headless chicken on LSD.
In retrospect, I don't believe that the purpose of our unique approach to dance was to entice or seduce, it was more like semaphore. We were signalling to each-other "I'm Right Here." "I'm Right Here." "I'm Right Here." We didn't need to find just any mate, we needed to specifically find each-other and that required some special moves.
Eventually the evening came to a close and Girl was deposited back at Sister's, happy and unharmed. While there had been nothing particular amorous or perhaps even memorable about the night's events, a connection had been made.
I seriously had no idea what was about to happen to me though.
The Finest in Comedy
Two days later, Girl calls me. She was to be attending a showing of her Sister's boyfriend's artwork and would I like to go with her?
I would like to say that at this point in my life I was quite accustomed to women calling me up for dates but as I believe that truth is paramount to survival, I am unable to make such a claim. Of course I wanted to go with her.
Several artists were represented, it was a fine show; lots of boxes filled with ironic and surely meaningful items suspended in resin and some paintings or something. Girl and I began to get to know each-other. We were having a good time praising and snarking on the art together. We chatted about ourselves, each other and our families. We met and instantly forgot new people together. We shared in the horror of her cousin's disastrously funny first-encounter with wasabi as it unfolded before us in slow-motion. (Hey, it can kind'a resemble guacamole to the uninitiated so why not eat a huge scoop of it?)
No doubt about it, Sister was spot-on; we were getting along.
Fate has a wicked-funny sense of humor once you get to know him. I know that, on occasion, it can get you killed but even then its usually still funny, to someone. Fortunately for us on this night, Fate was satisfied with simple cliche and not Greek-style "comedy with a capital 'C'".
After having our fill of art and wasabi, we found ourselves perched on the edge of the deck in the backyard, enjoying each other's conversation along with a beverage. For no particular reason other than that perhaps it appealed to her, she chose a glass of red wine that night. For no particular reason other than that perhaps I found them somewhat clean, I chose to wear beige pants that night.
The amount of time it takes for a glass of red wine to become a merely empty glass and a pair of beige pants to become a pair of somewhat mottled red pants is shockingly brief. I'm pretty vain for no apparent reason and I wasn't comfortable with the notion of spending the rest of the evening with purple stained trousers. I decided I would run home and change pants. Girl, more amused than anything, was finding the show growing a little stale and wanted a pack of smokes to-boot so she decided to tag-along.
Back at my place, we bummed around oblivious to the clock, continuing our chatter as time slipped-by. I'm not sure who landed the first kiss but it seems obvious now looking-back that neither of us really wanted to be anywhere but with each other from that moment on and that we wouldn't be returning to that art opening...
We Dance
What happened after that was that two souls, separated from each other for an indeterminate amount of time, were reunited once-again. I don't know anything but if there is a way that two people can remain connected to each-other outside of the bounds of their temporal, material existence, Girl and I are surely thus-connected. We dance, we always have and we always will.
The summer went by in a hazy, lazy blur. Whenever I think back and envision that summer, I seriously see little pink hearts and cupids buzzing around our heads. I always assumed that was simply metaphor. Sadly, Girl had to return to school, it was her last year and she had a lot of big things to take care of. I hadn't had much in the way of a love-life before so it was hard to see her go and I really wasn't sure what, if anything, to do. We subsisted on late-night and weekend phone calls as well as the occasional email. I even flew out to see her once, which was a novel thing for me to do.
Eventually school wrapped-up, she graduated and announced to all that she would be moving back to Seattle... to be with me. I have a hard time being modest about this fact. Ok, her sister DID live there and I do think she was intrigued by the majesty of the Pacific Northwest but I also think it was because I dwelt in it! Everything was coming up Beau!
Her parents fortunately seem to trust her and for some reason they liked me so I flew out to Chicago to collect her and all of her worldly possessions for their westward migration. It was the ride of my life. You learn a lot about someone when you drive half-way across the country with them and a backseat full of boxes. I'm pleased to say that aside from some obvious disagreements about how to read a map, we learned that we really, truly loved each other. Up to then, my biggest fear was that I was falling in love too quickly and that it would all come crashing down around me at any time. Instead, I was rewarded with the solid "click" of everything snapping firmly into place.
I Did, She Did, We Did So We Did It
As time went by, we talked about our life together and where it would go. Being worldly sorts, we found such notions as marriage and family to be somewhat quaint and mere technicalities that we need not concern ourselves so much with; what ever would happen, would happen, our love for each other was all that mattered. I might save the story of how we came to change our minds about that for some other time but the short of it is is that eventually, after all of the rational and reasonable reasons that we could fathom as to why we didn't need to get married, we simply realized that there was no reason NOT to. Emotion over reason, it seems to be a theme with me.
Similarly, we had never felt the urge to have children or a family and were able to rationally and reasonably argue away the need to. It wasn't that we opposed to idea (not entirely, at least), it just didn't seem necessary. There were plenty of other people breeding; the survival of the human race appeared secure even without our intervention. Eventually though, that to changed and much like getting married, we simply found no reason why we shouldn't have a child. That might sound cold, but it's actually born out of our deep love for each other. Like the marriage story, maybe I'll explain it sometime, but nothing so affirmed my existence, nothing in my life had ever said so directly to me that I was worth something, that I had value, than when Girl looked me in the eye and said, without words at all, that making a person with me wouldn't totally suck.
Up until then, despite my joy and sense of happiness, my life had really just been one question mark. Why was I here, what am I doing, why should I care? But after that day, my life held tangible value to me. I had the proverbial purpose.
We went about it the same way we do life, we just let whatever was going to happen, happen. We put no pressure on ourselves, we never once said "we're going to have a baby", we just stopped trying to prevent it. Or as Girl puts it "we removed the goalie". She really should be writing this, I'm sure there's a truckstop somewhere near Pittsburgh where she could be published.
And that eventually led us to where we are today; crazy in-love and about to pop.
I dedicate this blog to Girl, my unborn son and to my life; may I never forget how truly wonderful it all is. (And the cats too, I guess...)
I really want to be a good dad.
