Current mood:
thankful
Category:
Life "Let's try to jerk one out of the park." "That's the sexiest thing I've ever heard."
First, I'll just say on Opening Day Eve, that I've written a lengthy entry or two in the past few months on my blog on MySpace. What I can tell you right now is that if you can hold on through this one and see it through to the end, then I will personally give you a gold star, someday. The subject is something I've written about many, many, many times. However, it's always been fragments of the entire story. Now that it is going to have the happily ever after ending, I feel like it's time to throw it all out there for everyone to read about. Of course, this isn't the end of anything by any means, it's just the closing months of the first few chapters in our life.
Everyone has a story, some are personally defining and others have to do with people that come in and out of their lives that shape who they are and how they live their life. Mine pertains to one person specifically. Of course, and it shouldn't be any surprise to anyone that has followed this blog machine over the last two years, that the specific person is one Stephanie A. (I refuse to put last names on MySpace, just an FYI). I divide my life in to two areas now, before I met her and after I met her. I'm not joking, that is how I now quantify my life. I've only really been consciencly doing that for the past six months to a year, when I really knew for sure in my heart of hearts that I would in fact be moving to Kansas City and making good on my promise to her. This is a chronological journey through the beginnings of our relationship and even before. Lots of past tense.
After my senior year of high school I had to decide what I really wanted to do with my life. At that point I really had no idea what life had in store for me. The weeks and months leading up to graduation, I was accepted and looking at classes for UNLV since my Dad, whom I lived with, was moving there with his girlfriend Cindy (who is now my Stepmother). While going through my last summer in Sioux Falls I was having quite a good time partying and not working and basically living off money from graduation and money I had saved over the course of my career at Hy-Vee and working at Champs. Let me back up a little bit, during the end of my senior year I wasn't really dating anyone, but was more than chummy with a girl I went to prom with, I also had my eyes on just about anyone that moved or talked to me at the time since I spent a great part of my high school career wrapped up in one girl. Anyway, I met another girl through one of my best friend's sister whom I took a great liking to, but never really did anything about it at the time. That now sort of brings us up to speed into the summer of '98. This girl and I started dating and get pretty serious fairly quickly. She tells me that she doesn't want me to move to Las Vegas with my Dad. So, being the type of person that I was, I naturally told my Dad that I was staying in Sioux Falls and told UNLV that I would not be attending in the fall.
So, I stay behind in Sioux Falls and work at Musicland and decide to go to Maryville, Missouri with her because for some odd reason, she picked that school to go to. Nevermind the fact that she had never really been to Missouri, at least not that I can recall. I'm so in love with this gal that I really don't care that much and decide that this would be the best school for me to go as well. We pack our bags, load up, and head down I-29 to Northwest Missouri State University. The school year starts out like it probably did for everyone else when they were freshmen in college. Meeting people in your dorm, going to off campus parties, getting into local bars and buying drinks you weren't supposed to, deciding which classes and majors to pick. You know, freshman stuff. The fall progressed and I didn't really do so hot in school, all the freedom wasn't something I could handle all that well, even though I would correct this problem in the spring.
One of the classes that everyone was required to take was a computer basics class. Very easy and very remedial but a requirement none the less. I aced everything from Word to Excel to Power Point. The final project was to create a webpage and share it amongst all the students on the network at school. For those that did not attend Northwest the big draw for the school was the superiority of the technology on campus, and there was a computer in every room. That being said, it was mid to late November and I'm working away at my page and doing a fairly good job. I like to think I'm original to a point, but how far does that really go? Everyone likes to think they are original, but before I get on a tangent I'll stop myself. I thought I would sift through everyone else's page, or just look at some samples from others. I was going through the A's when I came across a page that wasn't extraordinary by any means, but the person who's picture was on the page grabbed me from the instant I laid eyes on it. I didn't look at it for too long however I had come back to it, I was enamored that very second I did. She was a sorority girl (which at first made me a little apprehensive), and a cheerleader from a suburb in Kansas City, Missouri. I could lie to you, and myself, and tell you I remember every detail of this page, but I don't. All I remember is that picture and what it was saying to me from my computer screen. I noticed that she had put her AOL IM screen name on her page and suddenly I thought it would be a good idea to talk to her. Now, keep in mind that this is looooong before the days of eHarmony and Match.com so striking up a conversation with a girl over the internet was a fairly new proposition, even though generations had used other means, it was still a little foreign to me.
I would like to take this moment to remind everyone that I was still dating the girl from Sioux Falls, that wouldn't change my entire freshman year at school. With the exception of breaking up a few times. So while reading everything that comes next keep this fact in mind. I finally decided to IM this girl whose picture I was entranced with. The picture itself wasn't anything out of this world either, she was a darker skinned girl, had very dark hair, and had a huge smile on her face. It was from the knees up and she was wearing a dark dress and standing in the doorway of her dorm room. There was just something about it though, I had to take a chance and talk to this girl for some reason. After the 6 dozen or so other student pages I looked at that also had IM screen names on them, I HAD to talk to this one for some odd reason.
I sat at my desk one afternoon and just decided to do it. I can't even tell you what we said when we started our first online conversation. I'm sure it was talking about class, school, and maybe even a little personal background. I remember adding her to my friends list and that was that. Nothing earth shattering or monumental seemed to come from that initial conversation. However, as the days and weeks went on we always seemed to be online at the same time and proceeded to talk more and more. It started out innocently enough, like I said I was with someone else, and from what I saw this exchange was nothing more than "meeting new and interesting people." We found that we had a lot in common, I felt like I could be more honest with her than I'd ever been with anyone, and I had this uncanny ability to set her mind at ease about issues she was having with her new sorority, friends, and other personal issues. It was a great way to spend my free time, that and play Final Fantasy VIII, but you know, whatever.
Talking to her online was a great way to take all the bullshit out of two 18 year olds meeting each other and becoming friends. No crazy sexual tension or weird expectations. Just conversation about any little thing under the sun you could think of. It was wonderful because I was getting to know someone in a way that I had never done before, it was something very positive and in stark contrast to what I had experienced in the years leading up to it.
Christmas vacation came that year and I was home for almost four weeks without talking to her. I was back in town with my old friends, same girlfriend, and old job at Musicland. It just didn't feel the same. This would become a recurring theme for quite awhile. I won't lie that I was excited to come back down to Maryville and talk to my new online friend. When I did get back down there, little did I know that it would be my last semester talking to her at Northwest. Before I get ahead of myself, I'll tell you that it was also a period that solidified what we both knew about what was going on. Through all of this, my current girlfriend still did not know about the mystery woman that lived in the same building as her. On one random night some friends and I decided to go to a basketball game, and so did she with some of her friends. We both told each other we'd be there, but that was about it. We didn't decide to meet up or anything like that, we just threw it out there like "I'll be there" and "oh, me too." It sort of set that expectation that if we do meet up, it will be random like everything else had been up until that point.
I spotted her at the game. I had seen her on campus before strolling to the Union with a friend of hers in the snow and wearing her pea coat. She was stunning. She was almost exotic to me. I know that while she reads this now she'll probably laugh at that one, but I'm being very honest here. I spotted her again leaving the arena as she was on her way back to her dorm with her friends. I was going back by myself to see my girlfriend. Now, this part is a point of contention on how we first locked eyes, but I'll believe her side of the story. Which ever way it happened for the sake of argument I'll tell it like this. I was on my way out of the building because it was short visit to my girlfriend's. We were probably fighting, something we made an art form out of. As I was walking down the stairs she was walking up along with some other people. We finally made eye contact as I was looking down at her, I froze and something hit me like I had never experienced in my life, like a freight train. Most people don't get hit by trains and live to tell people about it. I wouldn't experience anything like that for quite some time, but we'll get back to that. The long and short of it, I couldn't move or talk or think. I would later find out that she felt the same way. Everyone always tells you that when you see that person you are meant to be with, you just both know at the same time. Sometimes that is true, sometimes it's not. I think we were lucky enough to be those people.
The rest of the year we both hung out around each other only at the Union, occasionally meeting for lunch. However, we spent hours and hours online talking and talking and talking some more to each other. We got to know each other so well just by typing to each other, I think the AOL IM service may owe us for using their service. Or we owe them, however you feel about that. My girlfriend finally found out about this mystery woman and immediately hated her, which I guess I can't really blame her, because I thought about this girl all the time. Even though I insisted it was just a friendship and there was no way that this girl could have liked me. When we would continue to meet, people that knew my girlfriend would go back and tell her we met for lunch and we talked for a "long time." Of course my current girlfriend would confront me about it and I would again insist that it was nothing more than a causal conversation with a friend. I don't think my new friend and I met each other more that 4 or 5 times that semester, but those girlfriend defying moments would come to define the tenacity and grit for a later time in our relationship.
So the spring semester runs out and I go back to Sioux Falls and she goes back to Lee's Summit. We trade the occasional email but that's about it. It's the days of dial up folks, remember that. The hours we used to spend talking to each other now are a big empty void and she tells me how much she misses me, even though she is dating some other guy and I'm still with Miranda. There, that's her name. I'm tired of typing "that girl" or "girlfriend." Anyway. Somewhere along the line, Miranda and I decide that it's a better idea to stay in Sioux Falls and go to school and save money. I find this to be a good idea as well. I tell Stephanie this, and we are both sort of crushed in a way because neither of us know if we will ever see each other again, we think not.
So the fall starts and she is still seeing someone else and Miranda and I break up for the 478th time. I email her and tell her how I always felt about her. Of course she doesn't really know what to think because I'm sure it's confusing that she liked me the previous year and NOW I decide to tell her, after I'm not going back to Northwest and she's still there 300 miles away with some other guy. We talk and talk some more online now that I'm moved in with a friend of mine so I can use the computer and internet whenever I want.
My cousin in Omaha is getting married. Well, she was getting married that fall. I decide I'm going to drive down by myself because I want to go to Maryville and see some friends afterwards. I know that all I want to do is see Stephanie, so, after the ceremony I hop in my car and head to The 'Ville. She knows I'm coming down and that we are going to hang out, even though neither one of us knows exactly what we are going to do. We decide we are going to go to Kansas City for dinner and a movie. Keep in mind she's dating someone else. Never once did she object. So, we end up at the Olive Garden and have dinner there, love those damn breadsticks. I can't begin to tell you the amount of emotion that was in the air being where we both were in life. I can't believe that the night even happened to be quite honest. We had conversations pertaining to everything that was going on in our lives. After dinner we head to a movie, "What Lies Beneath." Not only is this funny in the fact that this is a full fledged date, but Stephanie hates movies like this. After the movie is over I drive her back to Maryville (about an hour and a half drive) I drop her off at her dorm and walk her upstairs so I can call my friend Ty and ask if I can crash on his couch. We find out from her roommate that her boyfriend has been calling her all night wondering where she was at. I don't quite know if she told him that "Stephanie went to dinner with Zach in Kansas City" or not, but I think she did. I tell her goodnight, and tell her I had a wonderful time. She does the same and I head to my friend's apartment, not knowing if I'll ever see her again.
The drive home is long and very hard on me. The night before was almost me kidding myself that I could be with her. I had broken up with a few ladies in my day up to that point, but none felt has heart wrenching as leaving a girl that I never really dated in the first place.
End of Part One
Welcome to Part 2. We last saw our hero catch one last fleeting glimpse into what he wished he would have held on and gone back for. However, he would only have the memories and thoughts of what could have been...
All in all, I went back to Sioux Falls and got back together with Miranda, again. I continued talking to Stephanie through the fall as she battled girls from New York, her ex-boyfriend, and mono. She often credits me with keeping her sane through this part of her life, which she also calls her most traumatic. I don't want to say that I saved the day and helped straighten her life out, but I did to a certain extent. She did all the work, I was just there to help and reap the glory. It's getting past the holidays and Miranda and I are in trouble again and end up crashing and burning. This would be the longest split between the two of us, but not the last. It's late January and I tell Stephanie that Miranda and I have broken up, almost immediately. Neither one of us can believe it, as if I had just escaped from jail rather than being in a relationship that I could have just walked away from. We do what anyone would expect us to do.
At the beginning of March, I am going to come down to Maryville and see her. No boyfriends, no girlfriends. Just us. We both count down the days, the minutes. Keep in mind that neither one of us has so much as held hands with each other. Nothing, maybe a hug that last time I came down, but that would have been it. Just a friendly ass-out hug too, nothing spectacular. We talk online almost every night and we talk on the phone some too. As we are getting closer to the middle of February something surprising happens. A friend of Stephanie's is going back home to South Dakota close to Valentine's Day. Stephanie rushes to tell me that she will be coming up to Sioux Falls to stay with me over the weekend. You couldn't tether either one of us down, we were too excited for words. So, I drive down to Vermillion to pick her up (I know those of you that aren't from South Dakota have no idea what I'm talking about, but you can look it up on Google Maps or something). We are both undoubtedly nervous to the nth degree. We head back to Sioux Falls and we do what most people would do that are happy/nervous/excited/scared. Go to T.G.I.Friday's of course! We go to dinner and converse and probably feel awkward and weird about being around each other for the first time with no strings.
We go back to my place and talk and watch TV and then watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Now, I can't think of a better movie to watch in this situation, can you? We are sitting in the living room and share our first kiss on my futon that I still have. It's going to be hard for me to give that thing up someday. Anyway, the next day I have to go to work so I have to leave her stranded at my house for 8 hours while she eats Skittles and watches Ferris Beuller 17 times. Just a side note, she has not let me live this down to this day. I get home and I decide to give her a tour of Sioux Falls and take her to a fancy Italian restaurant for dinner. Since we are both partially Italian (her more so than me) I think this makes perfect sense. It's very nice and romantic and you can write on the tables and we talk more about anything and everything under the sun. What we are best at. We spend our second night together (nothing happened, sheesh) knowing that she would have to go back to Missouri the next day, but that's ok because now for the first time we KNOW that we are going to see each other again. I take her back down to Vermillion and have to leave her there with her friends to return to school while I go back to Sioux Falls. If I only knew how many times I would have to do something like this, wow.
So the first week of March is upon us and I'm ready to take my trip to Maryville. I love and hate going back there because I have lots of friends and have a good time but it also reminds me of my shortcomings and not being able to see things through. I get in and we watch a little TRL and decide to go to dinner with some of her friends at Grey's Truckstop (right?) for some cheeseburgers. Now the rest of the weekend is a little sketchy but I remember going to a friend of her's then a bar and cutting her out of some pants that she couldn't get to unzip. We have a picture of that night that still makes us laugh when we think about that situation. We drove to Kansas City and I met her parents and her brothers. We milled around the Plaza (explanation later) and that was about it. That first weekend was also our first night "together" and the only reason I'm going to tell this story is because I did something very embarrassing and now we (I) can look back and laugh. The fact that I'm sharing this is probably not the coolest thing I've ever done, but here goes. I'm not sure if it was the cheeseburger, but I had not been feeling well that Friday when I got there. Of course I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to ruin our day. Well, long story short while being, um, intimate, I had to go to the bathroom to vomit from being sick. How's that for embarrassing? And we're still together after all that, but that is not the end of the story of course. As much as I'd like to draw a conclusion on that, I must proceed.
I go back home that Monday and I know that I'm going to be coming back in a few weeks. I know that she's coming up the first week in May to go to Minneapolis with me to see U2 with me and my Uncle Jay who had scored tickets for my late birthday present. I get the idea that I'm going to move to Kansas City, continue school down there, and work all at the same time. I try to transfer with the company that I work for but soon find out that it is just not going to happen. I go down to Maryville for the second and last time the first week in April, almost 6 years ago to the day. We have another great time, but then it hits me like a ton of bricks that Saturday night as we are about to go to bed. "This is not going to work out." Nick Drake's "Riverman" plays in the background. More on that later as well. Sunday comes and goes into the night and I get a call telling me that my Grandma "is in the hospital but everything will be ok, just wanted to let you know." No big deal, right? Well I use this "opportunity" to come back home because I just feel like I need to leave. I'm not sure if I thought it was because I was living a lie being down there, or if I was leading Stephanie on, or if I couldn't handle a long distance relationship. So I did what almost any 21 year old would do in that situation and ran back home very abruptly. I would not see her for over four years after this.
After I got home at around 2AM I was feeling like I'd ran home rather than drive my car. It was crazy, I still can't describe the feeling (once again). I basically stopped talking to Stephanie and would tend to ignore her because the situation was too heavy and I was unable to confront the truth. It was the wrong thing to do and a part of me still cannot believe that is how I would handle the situation. I would agonize over this for days, weeks, and years. I end up going to see U2 with a friend of mine from work, and my friend Pat gets tickets away from us in the nosebleed seats and doesn't have a ride so I tell him I would bring him and his guest. Turns out his guest he brings is my ex girlfriend Miranda. Interesting twist, no?
As the next few weeks went on Stephanie and I eventually lost contact and stopped speaking together, and I end up getting back together with Miranda. I don't even follow Stephanie in any way. No IM's, no emails. I didn't even read her Open Diary entries anymore because they hurt too much to read. I felt lost, and I would continue to feel lost in my personal life for quite some time after this.
My Mom remarried that summer which was very weird for me. My Dad remarried a couple years before that, but that was somehow ok. Miranda and I trudged forward for what would be the last gasp of our relationship. It all ended the following year in the spring about 6 weeks after we decided to move in together. She basically got back together with a guy she broke up with four years earlier and eventually ended up marrying him. So I guess I can't feel too bad about that one. That summer in 2002 was wild, crazy, and completely out of control. I drank all the time, "dated" about every girl I came across (even though I did develop some friendships out of all that mess) and almost bottomed out. I was playing in a band and that was crazy to keep up with to which I finally just crashed one night when we were playing out of town and ended up with Bell's Palsy, which looks the same as what a stroke victim would suffer from. One half of my face was completely dead, and I didn't know if it would ever come back. I left my job, moved back home with Mom and ended up telling Miranda to never talk to me again after she said she still wanted to be friends while getting back together with her ex.
Being at home with no job for a couple months gives you the opportunity to watch a lot of TV, catch some movies, rehab a bit, and check out the net. You know who was there and still willing to talk to me a year and a half later? Stephanie. We caught up a bit, told each other what was going on in our lives and so on. It was like we didn't miss a beat, even though we had. She is one out of three people I have this ability with in life. One is my friend Matt who's wedding I'm going to at the end of the month, the other is my friend Jason. Anyway... we are talking pretty much every night again when something happens. I meet another woman. My band (which would be our last performance) is playing a block party when I meet a girl that I went to elementary school, middle school, and high school with that I never really knew. She did some modeling in school but also had a kid so I didn't really want to have anything to do with her, as she ran around with another crowd. We went back to the same place where Stephanie and I shared our first kiss, my old place I lived in one year earlier, ended up exchanging numbers and the next year and a half would be history.
I moved in with this girl and she took me for quite a ride. I won't get into specifics, but relations with girls that have kids that aren't mine don't jive too well. The relationship was good for about 6 months then got pretty rocky. Stephanie and I traded emails once in a great while, but it was just basically to tell everyone in our address book we were moving, or graduated college, or got a new job. Something like that. I ended up moving out of this chick's house and moved in with my friend Cory in the spring of 2004. The guy was a life saver for me, and no matter what anyone can say about the guy and his old antics and way of doing things, he helped me out like non other.
That time when I moved out I almost slipped back into my ways from the summer of '02, luckily I had the insight this time to correct my mistakes. I decided I needed a change. The next year I was a hermit and didn't do much with the woman-folk. I basically had no desire to. When I sat down and thought about it, I hadn't had a break from girls and relationships since I was about 15. I was now 24, and nine years later I was waiting for something worth investing my time in. That year I spent my time focusing on my career, my friends, my family. I repaired a lot of damage that I caused and learned a lot about myself.
End of Part 2
It's now February of 2005, I've spent a lot of time going to bed early and not drinking or smoking at all. I'm approaching my 25th birthday and feel like I've got a good handle on things. I'm in the running to win my fourth vacation from work, to Puerto Vallarta, and I'm doing quite well personally. I've lived without cable for over a year and I didn't miss it at all. I'd become quite the audiophile understudy with Cory also. One night he decides he is going to bring over his parent's old computer so we can communicate with the outside world. I thought this was a good idea, considering that I already had the internet for my Xbox Live! subscription. So Cory brings over the computer about a week later and I've already gone out and purchased the necessary equipment to network everything together. So here it is late February and a few days before my birthday and my life is about to start drastically changing.
I go through the normal regamaroo of setting up the computer to my liking, downloading Firefox, the printer and scanner, and all the latest updated software. Of course, I also download something that I hadn't used in almost 3 years, and that is my trusty old computer sidekick, AOL IM. I look to see who still uses the damn thing, not too many people that used to chat for hours on end while I was in college partake in online chat anymore. There are a few of course, but my friend list of almost over one hundred is dormant. It would be a couple of more sittings online at night after work to come across Stephanie. Bear in mind that I have not directly spoken to Stephanie, with the exception of one random phone call I placed to her while living with my last girlfriend the previous year, in nearly 2 and a half years. So, I decide to give it a shot. I figure I've heard enough from her regarding her new job and boyfriend from the occasional mass email. At this point, I was not suspecting anything to happen. I send a message and she seems somewhat happy to hear from me. Nothing Earth shattering, no, "Oh my God! How aaaarrrrree you!!!" I wouldn't expect that from her anyway. So we chit chat about this and that and get into more "catching up with you" detail. She broke up with that guy I mentioned and now owns a cat. Things have changed indeed.
We go on and on like this for about a week until I decide to muster up the will to talk to her about how things ended with us four years earlier. I tell her that I feel terrible about what had happened, and she says that she was never mad at me because it was the circumstances that tore us apart the first time. I tell myself that I'm in the clear, even though I know that it was a little more than just the circumstances. I tell her that I wasn't capable to handle the relationship we were trying to create between 350 miles or so. She says that it's ok and since so much time has passed, she's just happy to talk to me for hours on end again. That is precisely what we do. I tell her I won a trip to Puerto Vallarta and she's happy for me, while deep down all I want to do is ask her to go, but that is beyond silly considering that we haven't even seen each other for years. She tells me about her new job about Hallmark, I tell her about my job at HSBC. We trade personal life stories and I tell her about my long lost brother that finally tracked my family down six months earlier. She knew about this, but it's kind of a cool thing to tell people that knew I had a half brother out there somewhere and tell them that we have all united.
After hours of serious conversation, I somehow direct the conversation to a movie that is coming out called "Fever Pitch." For those of you that do not know, I'm a pretty big Red Sox fan, and this movie was a love story in the setting of the Red Sox's championship season. I tell her not to go see it, because I want to drive 400 miles to come see it with her in Kansas City. My heart about comes out of my chest I'm so nervous. What right do I have to come visit her after everything that has happened? I still do it anyway, and surprisingly (and not at the same time) she accepts. We decide on a date. It's going to be the week after I get back from Mexico. I'm taking my future sister in law's older brother because I don't want to ask a girl to go because I don't want Stephanie to get the wrong impression of me. Strange, no?
So here we go, I'm going to Kansas City and the only thing I have planned is going to a movie. We have the awkward conversation regarding where I am going to sleep, or if I'm going to get a hotel. We decide the couch will work out just fine. I tell everyone I'm going to Kansas City to visit an old friend, and that's about it. Stephanie doesn't even tell her parents she's going to have a male houseguest that weekend, on Mother's Day no less. I've met her parents before but I'm not sure they would remember who I am. The whole 5 and a half hour drive seems double that. I pack "supplies" but I am 99.9999% sure that I will have no use for them. So I finally get to her apartment in Overland Park, Kansas and walk myself up the stairs to her apartment. She lives by herself now and has been for about a year, maybe less.
She opens the door and she looks different but feels the same. We give each other a little weird half hug and say it's really great to see each other. Where is the first place we go after watching the news for a bit? T.G.I.Friday's of course! It seems to be the perfect ice breaker for us for some dumb reason. We have a great conversation and you can tell that we've matured quite a bit from the last time we were around each other. We decide to watch the movie "Sideways" which was sort of funny considering the premise of the flick. After the movie is over we stay up until 3 in the morning talking about important issues. Not worldly or political issues mind you, but Stephanie and Zach issues. Which is good, at least I didn't drive that far just to have us bullshit each other.
The next day we wake up and go to lunch, and head downtown because she wants to show me the city and where she works. I can tell she is quite proud of the fact that she works for Hallmark. We walk up the Liberty Memorial and take a self portrait of ourselves for posterity, as Stephanie would later tell me. We head to the Country Club Plaza, which is an outdoor shopping district, which is south of Kansas City's Midtown area. We are going to head to our movie that I asked her to accompany me to. To this day, that holds the record for the longest distance traveled for me to go on a date. The movie itself is ok, I love all the Fenway Park footage and I feel the main character's pain about being a Sox fan. Then, as we get to the end of the movie, near the end anyway, where Jimmy Fallon's character is trying to get back together with Drew Barrymore's character after a botched pregnancy, and a failed trip to Paris, the unthinkable happens. First, a little background. Nick Drake has always been a favorite artist of mine and I introduced Stephanie to him back in the day. She even wrote a poem after we broke up with songs that we both liked. Our favorite song by him was "Northern Sky." And after she tells him to get lost, that very song came on in the movie. Neither one of us could have seen this coming and the surprise and emotion that was in the air was palpable. It was one of those undeniable moments where you knew that coincidence was something that people make up when they can't explain events that happen to them. We didn't even mention the fact that the song came on, but in that moment I knew there was no turning back from this and that we would somehow end up together.
As much as I would love to chronicle everything that transpired the next year and a half, I'm not sure MySpace can handle all of what I could write. Here it is in short detail. I moved out of Cory's and back in with my Mom to save money to move a few months after this trip in May of 2005. I got rid of my Volkswagen Jetta and bought a used Oldsmobile to save even more money and so I could pay it off faster. I took a shitty shift at work so I could get every weekend off. I set the expectation for myself and everyone around me that my days in Sioux Falls were numbered. Every 3 or 4 weeks I would either drive to Kansas City or Stephanie would drive to Sioux Falls. We told each other that summer of '05 it was do or die, in so many words. I told her I would not start getting serious about her, if I wasn't serious about moving. I also told her I wouldn't move down here just to date for awhile and break up. And so the bar was set for the both of us. We knew where we were headed and what we needed to do. In that year and a half we did all the things that normal couples would do, but we had to cram it into 3 or 4 days each month for the next 18 months. From May of 2005 until October of 2006 between the two of us we drove almost 20,000 miles, spent thousands of dollars in gas and travel expenses (including a broken serpentine belt, some towing charges and a flat tire), and talked for as many hours on the phone. Every night for hours on end. We wrote long emails to each other about our hopes and fears regarding our relationship. We met each others immediate and extended families and dug in even deeper. We took vacations together even. I saved every ticket stub, receipt, and other memorabilia worthy item that I could get my hands on. She was there for my brother's wedding, I was there for her cousin's. Milestone stuff.
Finally, after 6 and a half years of hoping and dreaming and wonder would have happened if, I finally got a job in Kansas City and moved. I lived here for only about a month before I pulled the trigger on asking her to be my wife. In 2005 we took our first picture at the Liberty Memorial. On our one year in 2006 we took another. Then I took her there in November of last year to propose. The journey is something that I could not have dreamed up in the fall of 1999, but this is how it all happened. On October 13th, 2007 we will be married. Almost 8 years after meeting each other the long road ends, and begins all at the same time, on that one date. We know it's right because it's something we had to want, and something we had to work at and fight for. At the same time, it was really no work at all. Looking back at all of it, it was worth the effort. "Northern Sky" will be the song that we dance together for the first time as husband and wife, which to me is very cool and very telling. It shows that time hasn't changed our feelings for each other, or could have been changed by any other situation in our lives between point A and point B.
The next six months basically bring the past eight years to a close, as we embark on the rest of our lives together. I know that everyone has a story about someone they love. This is mine.
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Musicforthemorningafter
By Pete Yorn
Release date: By 27 March, 2001 |
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