Rant #2,424: The Girl of My Dreams

As I said in the previous Rant from Friday, that was the final Rant where I would be mentioning the so-called "protestors," unless something spurs me to do another one.

I don't believe the protests are protests anymore, they are mob lynches against police, and they have racial undertones that marchers are completely and utterly blind to.

White they may have been good intentioned in concept, they have declined into rallies for hatred, even though they claim to be just the opposite, anarchistic smokescreens for violence and hate that is poo-pooed by many of our politicians, doing the worst pandering for future votes that I could ever imagine if it wasn't true.

There. I have said it again. I didn't want to say it, but I did.

I am going to move on from this, because it serves no purpose in beating this dead horse, even though this dead horse has legs, unless something is done about it, which it doesn't appear is going to happen.

What is way more important to me is my family, and the safety of my family against an undercurrent of hatred.

And this weekend, my wife and I finally had something to be happy about, because we celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary on Saturday.

It is kind of a funny story how we met about 30 years ago or so, and with all the negativity out there, it serves as a respite for all that is going on now.

My first marriage was over, plain and simple. It was done, and the only good thing to come out of that marriage was my daughter, who when everything happened was just two years old.

The separation from me in a situation that she could not possibly understand hurt her, and quite frankly, it continues to hurt her to this day.

But that being said, if it was not for her, I might not have every met the girl of my dreams.

I had visitation with my daughter every other weekend, where she could come over to the house and spend time with me--I also had phone visitation during the week--and one Saturday I think it was, my daughter had a scheduled sleepover with me.

We were playing in her room, and she was jumping all over me and having the time of her life. As she was jumping all over me, I had an epiphany: yes, I was also having a great time with my daughter, but was this all there was ever going to be for me?

As we laughed and giggled and were having fun, I decided right then and there that there had to be more for me, and I set out to do something about it.

I had seen some ads in the local newspaper for dating services--this was pre-Internet, of course--and one in particular caught my eye. I made an appointment with them, met with them pretty quickly, and all of a sudden, I was dating again, via computer dating, where they take information from you, grind it through a computer, and come up with dates that match your profile.

So I was dating again. I had a couple of dates, but honestly, the women I dated were nice, but they did nothing for me. I probably did nothing for them, too, so it was one and done for me.

The service called me in to their offices after a couple of dates did not work out, and the woman who spoke to me asked me some questions about why the dates had not worked out for me.

I kind of stuttered and nicely told her that the women and I didn't have any connection. They were nice, but that was that.

She then asked me the question which, lookkng back, sealed the deal for me. She asked me, "Why do you want?"

I hesitated, because at first, I did not know what she meant. But when I thought about it, I knew what she meant.

And I told her ... and that led to me actually getting what I wanted because within days, I met the woman who would eventually become my wife. She was great to talk to, every adult, and heck, she fit my profile for looks right away.

But something had happened the day before I was to meet her which could have soured the entire deal ... if we had let it sour the entire deal.

I was a real estate writer then, writing about real estate matters in the New York City Metropolitan Area for a small trade publication. The real estate market had gone into the garbage pail by this time, and one day, I came into work, and I was told that I was being laid off. I was the lead writer there--that was actually my title--so this came as a complete surprise to me, but literally a day before I was to go on the date, I was unemployed.

(As an aside, the company that I had worked for went out of business itself within about three months of my own termination, if even that long.)

Anyway, I thought to myself that in lieu of the circumstances, should I go out on the date or not?

I thought long and hard about this, and decided to go, but be upfront about the whole thing with the woman, telling her right away and giving her the option to bail out if she wanted to.

We had arranged to go to a local eatery, met there, sat at the bar, and I told her right away--we sat there for at least two hours, talking about this and that and the other thing.

I asked her to go out again, and she agreed, which was not astonishing, because we really hit it off, but was astonishing because of my brand new circumstances.

One thing led to another, and we became an item.

She stood by me through my unemployment--it lasted 18 months!--even though I did do a lot of freelance work during that period. She had more confidence in me than I had in myself.

With my divorce finalized--a story in itself which I will not go into here--and after I finally found a job working for a burglar and fire alarm association, we became engaged and were married on June 6, 1993, or 6/6/93, all "devil" numbers--"666" if you take the first two digits and then take the year and subtract 3 from the 9--and we went to the voodoo center of the world, New Orleans, on our honeymoon.

With all of these "odds" stacked against us, the rest is history.

We eventually became parents of our son in August 1995, and we have had a great marriage.

She really is and will always be the girl of my dreams, and after 27 years of wedded bliss, she remains that to me.

And yes, through this current bout of unemployment, she has stood by me as my Rock of Gibraltar, believing in me when I stopped believing in myself.

So there you have it.

Amidst the pandemic and the protests, and nearly eight months of being without a job, I continue to consider myself the luckiest guy on the face of the earth.

When you have the love of the perfect woman, you don't really need anything else, do you?