It Makes Me Remember

Me during the magical summer of 2004, shortly after
Jenn and I started Dating

We all have that project. That one thing we have to do, but always find a way NOT to get it done. You know the boxes you packed 6 years ago and have yet to go through them. The room full of crap you kind of pushed in there to clean the other parts of your house for guests. The attic you throw crap into without a care in the world and now the cable guy has to come over and fix your cable and he needs to get through the attic, and there you are, sitting in the cold sorting through crap to get rid of to make a path. I know you can relate. 

Well I started one of those projects. I have a room dubbed the "office". It was neat and organized, until we realized that we have a full house of people coming and still have crap all over the house. So we took all that crap and threw it in the office, closed the door and said, "don't go in there". If the producers from Hoarders came through they would say that this room was just the start of a bigger problem. No joke. Well it was the past Monday when we realized that the only way to get out our Christmas decorations is to un-bury the hatch to get into the crawl space where we store them. 

So last night I started to pull boxes out. I realized they were packed and sorted totally incorrectly, so I started to sort through the contents of the boxes, bags, envelopes, and Rubbermaid containers. This morning the sorting and repacking of memories started again, but stopped suddenly when I came across a folder stuffed with cards. Christmas cards, thank-you notes, wedding invites, and ticket stubs. I stopped to look at them and they were every Christmas card I have ever sent Jenn....ever. The first Valentine's card I ever gave her, a ticket stub from when we went to a play downtown when we started dating. The invitation to her best friend's wedding where we rekindled our relationship (July 10, 2004) that was started in high school. With every nonsensical page I turned in this card montage a whole flood of memories came back. 

What stopped me in my tracks was a journal Jenn had written in semi-regularly for 6 or 7 months from July of 2004 to about January 2005. It just so happened to be those first months when we started dating again in the summer of 2004. It had all her uneasy feelings about the beginning of our relationship. Her self reflections on how she felt about me, about Audrey, and about where this "thing" was going. As I flipped and read parts of it I realized I have forgotten a little bit of the man my wife fell in love with. I forgot about what it was to make her feel good. Lately things have been so crappy financially that we have forgotten about ourselves in the big scheme of things or job hunting and working at all hours to get the bills paid. I know we can never go back to the way it "was" but as the years pass, sometimes we forget about the things that made us fall in love in the first place. 

The names I gave her in the beginning I felt were hokey; I knew she loved them, so I continued. The way her days would not suck when she woke up with my arms around her. I read a note I wrote to her in the form of a thank-you card in December of 2004. Telling her that she has made me a more self-confident man. She reminded me what was important I closed it with a thought that I know this was the beginning of something special and to last a long time. 

I saw pictures of what I was. A strong self-confident man who just got out of a situation that was not ideal. I was finding myself again back in 2004. Fast forward to 2012. I feel much the same way about my self as I did prior to that magical summer in 2004. I don't feel confident. I have the same recurring nightmare about sitting in a crashing airplane. The dream interpreters say that it signifies I have set lofty goals for myself that I fear will never come to fruition. It also shows I lack the confidence to make those goals happen. 

Well in 2004 the sky was limit. I want that again and I want it again with my wife. My wife who is magnificent. My wife who became a mother of our lovely pain in the ass(said lovingly), Addison. This whole project of cleaning out our office has made me remember what I was, who I am, and what I am capable of. It reminded me of the Dad I used to be, the fun one that always enjoyed playing games and reading books.

Many of us forget what it was like way back when we started to date our now wives. Often life gets in the way. When you get into a fight you forget all the great things you loved about the person. It took me finding a journal my now wife wrote 8 years ago to make me remember who I was and to realize what I have become. I am not a bad guy. I love my wife just as much as I did in 2004, but I have changed no doubt. I have gotten a little more lazy and fatter. I don't leave love notes for my wife anymore. I need to do that again. I love her more than words could show, but I need to try and show her more.

I believe that life puts relationships in situations designed to rip them apart. It is only when you get through them that you realize your bond with each other is stronger than ever. 

Here's to getting through this storm.