On June 25th, 2005 I had my first date with my future wife at a little place in Saratoga Springs which was followed by a romantic stroll through the park up at the performing arts center. At that time I had just spent a year of my life working on gaining control of my life and becoming the person that I wanted to be and that people have always told me I could be. I moved to North Carolina in the summer of 2004, a little over 6 months clean and still trying to end the worst relationship that still to this day I think I have heard of, although everybody has had moments. What I realized about myself is that without drugs and women I wasnt really anybody or anything in my eyes, others saw things but I didn't. The next year I spent trying to focus on myself. the whole "date yourself" thing, find out what you like and don't and try to grow as a person type moments. I worked on honesty mainly because I was never honest with others because I was never honest with myself. Which leads to alot of loneliness and isolation. I stayed away from relationships with women, sure I had fun at times, but emotionally I never got involved and was honest with the women I met. The rule in the AA meeting that I was attending while picking up the peices of my life was to not date anyone for the first year of sobriety in order to find out some things about yourself and build a foundation that a relationship couldnt tear down with a fight or breakup. By the time of our first date I was about a year and a half sober and 11 months sober from relationships.
Leading up to meeting this beautiful girl where numerous chance occurances the main one being that I was supposed to have a job in Albany and when I got back to NY to work there, I was told that they needed me to work at a past place of employment that was owned by the same people. I accepted knowing that I would only be there 2 or 3 weeks until my sister graduated high school. That was where my future wife worked. She hated me at first as classic as that sounds but she got into my soul right away by being one of the only people to see right into me. My life changed forever when I met her and only in positive ways. Right away we fell in love and decided to do a long distance relationship until we couldnt do it anymore. A whole year we talked on the phone, wrote letters, visited, set up pcamp in peoples apartments, not many people in thier 20s would be that trusting, dedicated, committed, willing, and honest to do that and most people thought we were crazy, but what we found out is that she did better in school and had more fun and saw more things and I did the same. When she moved in the following year I started to do the best I have ever done in life period. Since then we have both graduated college and been accepted into graduate programs, we have visited 19 states and one other country besides the US, we have shared numerous moments of awe in nature and with family and friends. We both found what we want to do in life and are actively pursuing it quite successfully. To top it off I quit smoking for over 2 years now. All this is not amplified by any substances or lubed with any booze it is 100% real no matter what. This is happiness that I didnt know until I met her but if I hadnt have had that time for me to build myself, or her to take a chance, what I am trying to say is that for this whole time my life and happiness was not dependent on her. There wasnt that pressure, we have fun, we love, we do things big, we are spontaneous, we did things like long distance and it worked because we had fun doing it, there was nothing we would rather be doing, and today it is the same thing, words like compromise rarely come up even though they are important in relationships, we have fun and live, there is no being tied to the ground, no holding back, this is one of the reasons we never fight or argue, we are happy people in our daily lives without each other and then come together in this beautiful way and share our happiness as different as it can be at times but this doesnt define us as people it is love that flows into everything we do, think and say. This is hard to put into words but since I have met her I have felt that I can do anything and she can too and when we chose to do that together we have been able to do everything we have set out to do. Just one of the many reasons I asked her to be my wife. You and me together we really can do anything, baby!!
