Ten long long (but still short) years ago a wonderful young man asked me if I wanted to go to a football game with him. My sensitive answer to his daring request was “Sure, whatever.” This near tragic conversation was the beginning of a beautiful relationship between Vincent and me.
I was born in a desalinate cow town of a place called Bowie, Texas. Promptly at the age of 5 I was enrolled in Bowie Primary School. I made my way through the years excelling in nothing. I did all that was expected of me-I played the right sports; I took the right classes, and even had a few friends. In elementary school I played softball, in Jr. High in all my preteen confusion I met my first boyfriend (it lasted about 3 days), joined the band and hated every single minute of it, and tried basketball.
School was neither hard nor easy; I never studied but always made decent grades. One exception was in science was which to me is a total beast of a subject that can never be understood. No matter how hard I tried, the mysteries subject would not reveal her secrets to me. On the other hand, while all my class mates struggled with Math I simply walked in and understood.
In addition, to my lack luster life of school and sports, I was raised on a farm. Yes people, I have milked cows, feed chickens, and baled hay. My weekends were consumed by building fences, plowing fields, and moving cattle to various pastures. With all this country experience I knew that above anything else this was not the life for me. Once, my grandparents wanted to discuss getting me a horse, and I much to their dismay cried and begged them to reconsider. I knew the amount of work that a horse needed, and I did not want any part of it. I was already expected to give bottles to calves, feed and water the chickens, guineas, peacocks, rabbits, sheep, and cows EVERY SINGLE DAY, twice a day. In addition I must clean out the pens of the calves, if it was cold at night, make sure there was plenty of hay and a heat lamp.
You see people this was my entire life when I met Vincent. I had never traveled, except for a few HIGHLY supervised church ski trips. I obviously lived a very sheltered life. As I began my Junior year of High School, I had just broke up with my boyfriend, I was working at a grocery store and my goal was……..well I had NO GOALS!!!! I would wake up every morning go to Monica’s pick her up and go to school from school I would go to work from work home. I would wake up the next day and do it all over again.
Since Monica was and still is my BFF, we wanted to be in as many classes together as possible. Also since I am a year older than her, this took some schedule tweaking. Finally we got a few classes together and one of the was a Theatre Arts class. This was the biggest joke of a class EVER! We just made little plays and goofed off for an hour every day.
Well, Vincent for some reason was placed in our class. On the first day class we were all required to stand in the front of the class and give a little speech about ourselves. This was a pretty pointless exercise because all of us knew each other, except for Vincent. I come from a small town and small town people are NOSY. So trust me when I said I knew way to much about my fellow class mates AND my teacher who is my great aunt’s BFF. So when an exchange student from the place called Holland came up to do his little speech we all turned in with extreme interest to what he had to say. Of course our teacher, Ms Fitizener, took this opportunity to let the class ask him questions. As soon as Vincent said the words Amsterdam lots of people where asking lots of questions that where later deemed “Inappropriate for class” but Vincent had made his impression on the class and our teacher. I never really talked to Vincent, he had more classes with Monica and he became a mutual friend.
A few posts ago I wrote about going to the football games. This is a BIG DEAL. Everyone goes to the football games. And it did not take Vincent long to realize this, I also went to the games mainly because, HELLO! I live in a desolate cow town, what else am I going to do. However, I did not dress up to go the games, in fact I would rebel and purposely dress down. Monica would try to get me to change cloths, put on makeup, leave my hair down! But I would not. Because I am a REBEL!!! At one of these football games Monica and I were standing near the Concession Stand (prime place to be) waiting for something to happen (it is what all tennages do in small towns). Vincent walked up started talking to Monica. After that game we started talking more. Then one Friday, a few weeks later, after class when I was not expecting him to, he asked me if I wanted to go to the next game together. The next game was HOMECOMING! This is a BIG deal in Bowie TEXAS. Homecoming people. It is the game of the season. As I stated earlier, my so cool response…..”Sure, whatever….” Was not what Vincent wanted to hear. He went to Monica to get her to decode my cryptic answer. Later that day in another class, Monica in not so quite whispers grilled me on what my appropriate response should have been. Soon everyone knew that Vincent had asked me to the game.
My first thought at being asked to the game was that I did not enough money to buy him a garter. I came so close to saying “no thanks.” Actually if I remember correctly I would probably said “Not really”. Vincent bless his heart learned quite quickly something very important about me, I am very insensitive. I knew that I would have to borrow money buy him one, and then on top of that I did not want to wear a mum. I was way too cool to be doing that. The night of the big game we took pictures and left the mum and the garter in the car. After that night we started to hang out every day, and soon became inseparable.
Never once did it cross my mind that I have met the person that later become my husband. How was I to know that in 5 years we would be married. And that in 10 years today I am sitting here reminiscent about our time together. The day we decided that I should move to Holland, The horrible day that he boarded the plane to Amsterdam for a year. All the time spend reading and rereading the mail we sent to each other. Packing up my things to move to a new country. Seeing Vincent’s family for the first time after my first airplane flight.
The vacations we took. Moving back the US. The time Vincent was going to ask me to married him, but I want him to wait! (and he did) When he did ask me to marry him later, my response was “Yes!” Moving into our first apartment. Getting Lucy together. Vincent’s car wreak in the ice. Our really long engagement, the wedding. Moving to Commerce TX. Vincent studying for the MCAT. The long and turbulent spring semester that we finally graduated. Trip to Switzerland. Getting Rosy. Moving to Raleigh, NC HOMELESS!!!! Not finding dream jobs. Getting accepted into medical school. Moving to Fairmont with the world’s worst hangover. Getting thought our first year of medical school.
This is where we are now! I think about how far we have come in the 10 years, with all of our obstacles. And I amazed that we are still together. I have made Vincent endure my family, my flightiness in relationships (our engagement was 15 months), my quirkiness in not touching the trash in the trashcan, raw meat, or anything that may have fell in the toilet. My constant need to make tacky crafts, and my refusal to put gas in the car. Vincent on a night basis does not question my need for water from the kitchen, not the bathroom. He does not expect me to cook or to clean up after him. Which is a good thing because I do neither on a daily basis.
Vincent makes me feel like his only wish for me to to be happy, which in turn makes me happy. It is a good thing that I said "sure, whatever."
