To My Wife, Times Nine

I can't believe it's been nine years. It's practically impossible to fathom, when I try to look back and think about other 9-year periods in my life. When Adrienne and I first met in August 2010, nine years seemed like an eternity. Hell, nine years prior to that day, I was just starting my junior year of high school. I was just getting my driver's license. For all intents and purposes, I was a child. If I'm being totally honest, even at 25, when I met Adrienne, I was still a child. But, despite how crazy it sounds, here we are. Nine years down, a lifetime to go. I absolutely cannot wait to find out what the next nine years will hold for us.

Last year, since it was our 8th anniversary, I wrote about eight reasons why I love Adrienne. I figured I would do something a little different for year nine. While I could, no doubt, fill an entire Encyclopedia Britannica-like volume with minute details and stories from the last near-decade, I decided to focus on one or two "stand-out" moments from each of the last nine years. Some are major rites of passage any one of us might focus on in our own lives, while others are seemingly minor moments in time that have resonated with me, and will continue to do so, forever. No matter the significance, each has been a major part of the fabric of us, and will forever be a part of our story. Without further ado, a brief history of the greatest nine years of my life. 

2012-2013: The easiest one, here, would be the purchase of our first home. We closed on our house at 425 Eastern Valley Estates in July, and it was a dream come true for us. It was the neighborhood we wanted, it was affordable, and it was perfect for a couple with no kids. It was a benchmark, there's absolutely no question. But my favorite memory from our first year was our Spring Break trip to Asheville, North Carolina. We walked around downtown, saw Neil Young ordering appetizers at a bar, and rode around the city on a short bus, touring local microbreweries. I had so much fun on that tour, I invited a couple we met to have dinner with us, much to the chagrin of Adrienne. Chester was a nightmare for his babysitters, but that didn't stop us from deciding to spend an extra night in Gatlinburg, just because we drove by it. Spontaneity was a big part of year one.

2013-2014: There's a lot of things I could pick from year two. We started to settle into married life, and we had a blast. We traveled a lot. We went on our first beach vacation to Santa Rosa Beach, we went back to Gatlinburg to celebrate our anniversary, and we saw the Avett Brothers twice, including our second New Year's Eve show in Charlotte. Here and there, when we had extra money, we made small changes to our house. But, my favorite part of year two was when we bought The Cheetah. We spent basically every weekend on the lake in that big pile of 1980s blue carpet and crappy vinyl. We spent countless hours, made countless memories, on that old boat, and although it's bad luck to have a boat without a name, we simply couldn't find anything better than "Cheetah." I'm glad we never fought it.

2014-2015: There were a lot of great memories from year three...How could we not look back fondly on me tearing my Achilles, being virtually invalid for three months, and Adrienne cleaning my toes with Q-Tips because I couldn't reach my feet? But, my favorite memory of that year was finding out Adrienne was pregnant for the first time. She called me at work, and I remember cutting her off before she could finish her sentence, "Nope! You're not going to tell me this over the phone, while I'm at work. I'll be home in an hour!" The next day, I walked into the office, and within five minutes, my boss, Jen, looked at me and said, "What's wrong? You're being weird...Is Adrienne pregnant?!" I'm certain all color left my face, as I tried to vainly deny her assumption, but it was impossible. I simply replied, "You cannot tell Adrienne that I gave it away...We haven't told anyone yet!"

2015-2016: The only, and obvious, choice is Charlotte being born. I remember practically every vivid detail of that entire day, and most of the next. We had a doctor's appointment scheduled for 9:00 AM on Tuesday the 29th, and the nurse told us Adrienne was having contractions (they were just so faint, she couldn't feel them yet). So the doctor scheduled us to come to the hospital the next morning at 5:00, but her contractions were bad enough that evening that we went ahead to the hospital around 6:30 that night. Things were slow-going after that, but Charlotte finally made her arrival at 5:15 PM on Wednesday, December 30. Ringing in the new year will never come close to being that special.

2016-2017: My favorite memory from year five should be us moving into our new house, and all the excitement that comes from that. It all happened rather quickly...Adrienne and I weren't even really considering selling our house and moving; I had just started a new job, Charlotte was barely a year old, and we craved routine and normalcy. But, we did it anyway. And I don't regret it at all. But, for a month, when we were between houses, we lived out of suitcases in Doug and Jackie's small, two-bedroom apartment in town. We had no space, we didn't have 90 percent of our stuff, we only had one bathroom, and it was absolutely fantastic. We look back on that month in the summer of 2017 as happily as any other span in our time together, and we talk about it often. We quickly realized we didn't need half the stuff we had at our old house, and, in many ways, we were better off without it. We crammed a whole lot of fond memories in those few short weeks, and I miss those days.

2017-2018: The best part of year six came at the very end of it, when Delilah was born on September 8th. We were so much more relaxed than when Charlotte was born, and we approached the trip to the hospital like we were checking into a hotel. I was so enthralled in Kentucky beating Florida in football for the first time in 31 years, I didn't offer much help in the delivery room as we waited on Delilah. I'm certainly not proud of that, but hey...We had been through that before, and I knew Adrienne had it under control. Watching Charlotte interact with her baby sister for the first time is one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed, and it makes me smile every time Charlotte or Delilah asks to watch those videos (it's quite often).

2018-2019: Delilah got to spend her first night in a hotel when we went to Gatlinburg in May, and it was such a fun trip. Charlotte was old enough to actually realize that we were on vacation, and she still talks about that trip to this day. We were supposed to be in Gatlinburg right now, but ya know, COVID (to hell with COVID). But, my favorite memory from that year (and watching Delilah and Charlotte grow during that time produced literal countless memories) was Father's Day. There was nothing particularly special about the day. We didn't go anywhere, we didn't do anything. We sat on the back patio, and the girls played with their water table, and sat in their kiddie pool. It was one of those days, one of those moments, where I knew, as it was happening, that it was special. The four of us have had dozens of other days just like that, but for whatever reason, that one sticks with me. It was the perfect day.

2019-2020: Adrienne and I don't get a whole lot of time to spend together, without the girls, but we try to make time for that on occasion. COVID (to hell with COVID) has made that a little more difficult than it has been in the past, but luckily we were able to go to Gatlinburg for a few days to celebrate our anniversary. Because of COVID (to hell with COVID), we didn't really plan on doing much. We just wanted to relax, and spend time together. We did make time to hit up the Arts and Crafts Community (it's tradition), and had the best burgers we've ever eaten at Split Rail Eats, but the majority of the trip was spent ordering Uber Eats or DoorDash, playing pool and air hockey in our cabin, or listening to music while we sipped an adult beverage on the deck, overlooking the Smokey Mountains. Talk about recharging your batteries.

2020-2021: Adrienne and I had a blast when we went to Chicago for a wedding back in December of '19, and we couldn't wait to take the girls there. We are fortunate to have family that live right in the heart of the city, and they offered up their beautiful home and it made our trip so much more comfortable than it would've been in a hotel. But, more than that, it was so cool to just walk around residential neighborhoods, visit Wrigley Field, and truly feel immersed in the city. We certainly did our share of touristy stuff (we shopped on Michigan Avenue and visited the Field Natural History Museum), but because of the circumstances, it gave us the illusion of being locals for a few days. And I'm so glad Charlotte and Delilah got to experience it. Charlotte told us the other day, we're not allowed to go back to Chicago without her and Delilah.

Nine years used to sound and feel like a lifetime in itself. Now, it seems like the blink of an eye. Obviously, a lot has changed for Adrienne and I since October 6, 2012...We've moved three times, changed jobs, had two beautiful little girls, watched them grow, experienced unfathomable joy, heartache, fear, and everything in between. But, if given the chance to do it all over again, I'd do it without a second's hesitation, and wouldn't change one, single thing. I love you, Adrienne, so much I can't stand my life. Happy 9th anniversary!

To My Other Three-Year-Old

English author Emma Darwin refers to it as the itch of writing. Essentially, it's just a desire to sit down and write; it could be a short story, a letter to a friend, a journal entry, blog post, poem, song lyrics...Whatever. I experience it often, and rarely for the same reason. Sometimes a significant event in my life has taken place, and I want to record my immediate thoughts on it so I don't forget them as time passes. Sometimes I may read a news article, or see a movie that stirs an emotional response that I feel the need to express. Other times it's for no good reason at all. I may be standing by the grill waiting on burgers to finish and the thought will cross my mind. I could be sitting on the mower, making the 12th pass through the back yard. Maybe it's just boredom. Regardless of the circumstance that causes it to manifest, I really think the itch, at its core, is just a desire to tell a story...To communicate.

I've wanted to write for a while, now. Between noteworthy happenings in my own life and the emotional rollercoaster that has been our collective existence the last several months, there's been absolutely no shortage of potential topics. But, for whatever reason, the words just wouldn't come. I've sat down at my laptop no less than six times the last few weeks, stared a blank screen for half an hour, written an absolutely god-awful paragraph, deleted said paragraph, stared for thirty minutes more, then just given up and watched King of Queens reruns. When you have the itch of writing, and no presentable prose appears, it can be infuriating.

Luckily, today is Delilah's 3rd birthday. I wouldn't really need a reason to write about my girls, but I figure a birthday is as good a reason as any. God knows Delilah is an absolute treasure-trove of material, so this should be one of the easiest pieces I've ever had the privilege of writing.

I never thought anyone, or anything, could have my heart the way Charlotte does. That little girl had me wrapped around her little finger when she was nothing more than a black and white dot printed on some thermal paper. For me, it was all over but the shouting.

And then came Delilah. And, whew, boy...She has given Charlotte an absolute run for her money.

I've touched on this before, but there's just something about the second child that makes you take your guard down, in so many different ways. Delilah can get away with twice as much as Charlotte could have ever even considered. And it isn't because our love for Delilah is any stronger than it is (or was) for Charlotte; it's just that she was lucky enough to come along after Adrienne and I had come to the realization that we aren't terrible at parenting. Charlotte was the guinea pig, and Delilah was everything after.

Maybe there's just something about being the baby...Delilah is just So. Damn. Cute. Adrienne and I joke about it often: There's something different about Delilah. I swear, there are times where I feel like I can't look directly at her. It physically hurts me. I am absolutely certain that Charlotte had the same affect on Adrienne and I when she was three. The thing is, though, she was first...We weren't disarmed, just yet, like we have been with Delilah. We hate to fall into some second-child, some baby, stereotype, but...It is what it is.

Charlotte and Delilah are so similar in many ways, but total opposites in others. Charlotte has an incredible ability to think of others. She always wants to play with Delilah...She wants to share toys, or take turns when they pick something to watch on TV. Almost daily, we get a report from school about how Charlotte offers help to other students, respects her teachers, and listens attentively. Delilah, on the other hand, is so independent. It's as if Charlotte is a dog, and Delilah is a cat. Delilah wants to play with Charlotte, but on her own terms. If she wants to sit and play with her Paw Patrol characters or "Barbie animals," she will. If Charlotte tries to join, and she doesn't genuinely want her to, Delilah loses her mind. She hasn't quite figured out how to share...Or, at least, she hasn't decided she wants to. And as much as Adrienne and I try to discipline Delilah in those instances, it's just not the same.  

Delilah is just so funny. And smart. And articulate. So much so, in fact, that we'll look at each other and wonder, "How does she even know those words?" A good example happened just last week. I had left a water cup on my nightstand from the night before, and Delilah happened across it. She brought it to me and deadpanned, "You need to drink this, Daddy, so you stay nice and hydrated." The only reply I could muster was, "Uh...Yes...You're right. Thank you." Things like that happen almost daily.

It's obvious that Charlotte's influence has had an exponential impact on Delilah. We thought the same things and had the same reactions to things Charlotte used to do (things she still does). But, for some inexplicable reason, we are still surprised every single time. And yet...It's just not the same.

I think the way to describe my feelings is best articulated in the Avett Brothers' song, "Murder in the City." They, so eloquently put it, "I love you, and I'm proud of you both, in so many different ways." I can only imagine how much that sentiment will grow in my own heart and mind as my girls continue to mature and change.

Happy Birthday, Delilah Rose! We love you so much, we can't stand our lives.