Dad Revisited

Not recently, of course. I’ve been married for a while. More than 18 years, to be specific.

I knew a few girls in my younger years. I wasn’t what the kids today might call a ‘player’ but I did okay. Well, okay for a young man who played the clarinet and saxophone, sang in a Renaissance singing group wearing tights, took tap dancing lessons, and ran away from the only fight that ever came his way.

Believe it or not, there is a woman in the world who finds these things attractive. Scoff if you want, but it’s true. We’ve been married for 18 years. We dated for three years before that. We met 7 years before we started dating. In total, we have known each other closely and peripherally for 28 years. It’s a long and somewhat wierd story.

We met doing theater. I was playing Judas in a community theater production of “Godspell.” She was prop mistress for the show. She was also dating “Jesus.” We knew one another, and actually went out on a double date once. I was fifteen years old, and I had a habit of dating older women. She was 18, but never popped on my radar as a person in whom I had an interest. She just wasn’t on my radar.

The show ended, she got engaged and went to college. I went back to high school. She and the right-hand-of-the-father never married, and after what could be called a bad breakup, she decided to go away to graduate school. In the meantime, I was finishing my time at high school and spending four years in the business world.

Our worlds collided again when she returned from grad school and decided to get back into community theater. A friend had called her to be the stage manager for a workshop production. The theater hosting the workshop was showing “The Threepenny Opera” at the time, so she had to coordinate events with the resident stage manager. I was the resident stage manager. I was finishing up my last show prior to going away for my undergrad. She came in, I looked into her eyes, and remembered I was going away to school.

She claims she knew soon after we met that we would be together forever. It took me a while. It was 7 days before I was sure she was the one for me. It was a whirlwind at first, but a long-distance relationship is not really whirling as much as it is slogging. It was terrific, and she got me through a lot of difficult times in college. Her love and support were indispensable. I would not have finished school had it not been for her on the other end of the phone.

We were married 18 years ago, and she has been there for me every day since. I could not imagine spending my life without her. I only hope someday to be able to show her how important she really is to me.