…greatest night of your lives.
July 16, 2008
The Engagement
June 29, 2007
I’ve always been very good at planning events. I don’t find it difficult to take the initiative to make the phone calls, reservations and even at times put money up front to lock in a hotel, campground or even a big ol’ barbecue. For months I had the whole engagement planned out in my head. I imagined the whole process going down flawlessly on a sunny Saturday afternoon with a gentle breeze to our sides and a huge smile on her face. I even went as far as imagining the car ride home, her relentless giggles of excitement and repeated I love you’s. I imagined going to the jewelry store before all of this and finding the perfect ring and without even seeing any others, I knew that this ring was the one. I imagined tucking the ring into my pocket and taking deep breaths as I put on my acting face and let the days roll by until “The Day.”
When it all came down to it, nothing really happened that way at all. But I can’t be upset at that, can I? I mean, I am happy with how it went down and I know she is too. It still just surprises me and befuddles me as to how instantaneous and spontaneous it was. Everything that was planned was forgotten and I only had one thing on my mind.
The day began just like any other as I sat in my chair eating a bowl of MultiGrain Cheerios with Trot lying down by my feet. I watched Sportscenter roll through the previous day’s sporting events as Kelly blow-dried her hair in the bathroom. She came by, kissed me good bye and went on her way to work. I finished up my cereal and hopped in the car and drove to work, just like usual. I arrived at work, unloaded my Lenovo and checked my email, just like always. Around 9am, people began to roll in by the dozens and just like normal, I started to get hungry again. By the time 9:15am came, I found myself on several jeweler websites and I was scoping rings again, to see what was available. It was at this point that I felt an urge to go to a store and look at rings.
Surprisingly, this wasn’t the first time I got this urge. I had the identical urge last week and even got the address of a local jeweler and drove there during work. I couldn’t find the damned place and drove in a circle looking for anything, but found nothing. I continued my way back to work and finished out the rest of the day. This time, I was cruising in my car, and listening to Gimmy direct me to the Smith Haven Mall. In no time at all I found myself arriving at my destination and rolling into a parking spot right up front. As I got out of the car I began to notice the other patrons at the mall could pass as my Grandparents or even Great Grandparents. As I entered the mall I saw a posting of the mall hours, 10am to 8pm. I looked down at my watch and saw the little hand half way between 9 and 10 and the big hand just past the 6.
Great. Not only did I leave work without saying a word, but now I have to sit in this mall for nearly one half hour before the stores open. I began walking slowly down the mall and hoped that it’d take me 20 minutes to find the store, sadly, I arrived at the store in 2 minutes. The metal chain gates were lowered in front of the store and two ladies were inside filling out some paperwork. I stood outside pacing back and forth watching the minutes tick by on my watch. A lady inside the store asked if I was there to pick up or make a payment; I replied with my one word answer, “engagement.” At that moment, the two ladies came to the front of the store and opened the gate, ushering me inside as the lights began to flicker on. Behind me, the gates closed as the only lights in the store turning on were the lights above the engagement rings.
They led me over and we thumbed through some diamonds. I told them exactly what I was looking for and they began to show me alternatives instead. When I said round, they showed me octagonal. When I said white gold they showed me platinum. Thankfully, the two ladies weren’t focused as much on making a sale as they were on find the right ring. One lady pulled out the round diamond in a Cathedral setting on 18K white gold. The diamond was colorless and refracted light beautifully. I made the purchase, shoved the ring and case into my pocket and started making the phone calls.
I spoke with so many people in such a short period of time and I don’t remember exactly who I spoke to. I found myself driving towards Kelly’s father’s home when I knew I should’ve been back at work by now. But this was more important and it had to be done. I sat down with Kelly’s father at the breakfast bar, folding my hands in front of me as I stared at the counter-top. I began speaking to him and I could start to see a smile growing on his face. By the time I pulled the ring out his smile had grown tremendously and his eyes were lit with excitement. He gave me his blessings and sent me on my way.
The time was 10:45am and my heart was absolutely pounding. I rolled back into work and couldn’t even pretend to focus. I spoke with some coworkers and let them know what was going on and they were all very excited. They told me I could leave early if needed to get ready and without hesitation I took them up on that offer. By the time I got home it was 12:30pm, and Kelly was slated to be home around 6:30pm. 6 hours needed to pass and every second grew longer. I watched some TV, ate some lunch and played with Trot… 5 minutes had passed. I began thinking about what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, the display, the clothing, everything.
Just then I began saying, “Oh Lord, Oh Lord. I need flowers…flowers? Yes, flowers! But where? Where? Flowers? Get flowers. Go. Now.”
I drove down the street until I saw a garden center nearby. I jumped out of the car, grabbed 4 dozen red roses and headed back home. As I put the flowers in water I began saying, “Just flowers? Should I do more? Yes, more. But what? Candles? She likes candles! I’ll do candles. Go. Now.”
I hopped back in my car and drove to a craft store, I knew I’d be buying in bulk and wasn’t interested in scented candles to drive the senses wild. I grabbed a hundred tea light candles and a couple boxes of scented red candles. I grabbed a couple garden stands and some vases and headed back home. I started to set everything up and even cut the flowers properly and arranged them with the baby’s breath. I had the shell of everything set up and was pleased with my progress, the time was now 12:37pm.
Not really, but that is what this felt like. So I sat down and waited, and waited, and waited. Time never moved so slowly before and I despised it for doing so. I kept hoping Kelly would leave work early for some absurd reason so I could get to that moment; but I had no such luck this day.
A couple hours later I decided I could start to put the candles out, but knew that I shouldn’t light them quite yet. I began placing the candles all over and tried to focus on a perfect design, but my hands trembled and my brain was useless. It took me a good 40 minutes to set everything up, mainly because I kept changing the order of the candles and flowers until I couldn’t conceive a different layout.
Around 6pm I began lighting the candles. I wanted to make sure that I had time to light all 100+ candles and didn’t want Kelly to arrive as things were in construction. It took me about 20 minutes to light all of the candles as some of the wicks were buried into the wax and others just refused to be set on fire. Finally, everything was lit and all I had to do was wait.
I called Kelly and found out she was only 10 minutes away. The countdown began. I couldn’t tell if my heart was beating faster and harder, or harder and slower. All I know is that I felt my heart beating in my throat; and that was very weird. I kept hunching over the door to look through the eye hole waiting for her blue Civic to pull into the parking spot. I had a lighter in my hand and was battling the candles as I waited. Everytime a candle blew out, I re-lit the candle. I kept misplacing the ring case and setting down the lighter, then finding the lighter and setting down the ring case. I couldn’t believe how silly I was being and clumsy at that.
I remember staring through the eye-hole and seeing a blue car pull up, at this point my heart lost the ability to circulate blood through my body and I couldn’t breathe. I watched her door open and followed her as she came around to the front door. I jumped backwards, dropped to my knee and waited for her to open the door.
The Angst
March 20, 2007
I’m sure if you are reading this, that we have likely spoken about this event last week, however, I feel the need to click it out on the keyboard in hopes that my fingers will write out some thoughts that my mind is incapable of translating. Last Thursday, Kelly invited some of her coworkers out to Dave and Buster’s during Happy Hour to celebrate her new job. Kelly was finally able to get a position in an HR Department with a reputable company – and she was duly excited. In anticipation of this celebration, I also invited some of our friends out as well as they invited their friends.
The night started out on a tremendous note. As people arrived at the bar they congratulated Kelly and ordered a delicious beverage from the bartender. We sat around and talked in two small groups, all reminiscing about life, work and all that fun stuff in between. As the night progressed, so did our states of inebriation. Some of us are able to hold our liquor better than others, and some of us should never be allowed to drink.
Now many people believe that when you are drunk, you are incapable of lying because your inhibitions are simply gone! Other’s argue that when you are drunk, you are the complete opposite of the person you are when you are sober – again, attributable to the lack of inhibitions. Either way, there are those of us out there who do not hold people responsible for what they do or say while they are drunk, simply because that person has no cognoscente behavior about them.
One of the people who was invited by a third party (I guess that makes him a 4th party, however, the “third party” was really a 2nd party because he is directly friends with Kelly and therefore invited by virtue of that relationship) has been known to do incredibly stupid things while he is wasted. Now I have hung out with this individual in the past and I held him in high regards. He is very respectful, reserved, and generally a nice person. At one point in the night we look around at our surroundings and find this person standing very close to another one of our friends, a girl. He is practically pressed up directly against her and talking into her ear. Knowing that she likely wasn’t comfortable about this drunkards behavior, I walked over and pulled “the guy” off. I told him that she had a boyfriend and his actions were not acceptable.
As he looked at me, I could tell that he wouldn’t remember a moment of this night, as his eyes rolled upwards then downwards and all around his sockets. He tried to tell me that everything was okay and he began to walk back towards the girl. I watched him closely to make sure he didn’t try to get too close to her again, but what a surprise – he was pressing up on her again!! My friend and I walked over to him as the girl was trying to get away from him. He kept pulling her in and she kept telling him no, and he kept pulling her in. The two of us grabbed his arms and pulled him back aggressively, and made sure that the girl was able to safely walk back to the group. She nestled herself in between Kelly and our friend. Now the two of us were holding him back and we made it abundantly clear that she was off limits and he was not to go near her for the rest of the night.
At this point he tried to hand me money, why? Who the fuck knows why (I actually found out the answer later in the evening, but we’ll get to that)? This time, instead of letting him go, we told him to stay put as the two of us returned to the bar to talk to the others. A few minutes later I was standing next to Kelly and I saw this guy walk towards us. He didn’t appear to remember anything we told him because he was acting like nothing happened. At that moment, things changed. This guy tried putting his arm around Kelly, and without any hesitation, the second his arm came towards her, she grabbed his wrist, pulled it away and screamed, “NO!” The foolish boy tried this a few more times and the same result occurred every time, Kelly grabbed his arm, twisted it, and pushed him back, screaming, “NO!”
Kelly stood up at this point and began to scream at him. The kid stood there and rocked back and forth, as if he was ready to fall sideways. Kelly started to walk away and he reached for her. He said something to her and Kelly screamed at the top of her lungs, “I SAID NO!” At this point, after watching Kelly impressively defend herself, I walked over to the guy to speak with him. My blood was boiling at this point and my first instinct was to choke him. I wanted to grab his neck with my huge hands, and squeeze it as I pressed him over the railing. I wanted to get into his face and speak quietly to him, letting him know that if I ever saw him again that I would make sure he regretted it. I wanted to squeeze his throat until his eyes watered blood and he choked on his last breath; then I’d let go and watch him cough and gasp to fill his lung with air.
But I didn’t. In an instant, I thought about the repercussions of the above actions and how it could seriously backfire. I thought about the alcohol in my blood and how it was altering my perception of reality. I also thought about Kelly, and how she defended herself without hesitation, and with honor. So I didn’t do the things that ran in my head. Instead, I told him to never talk to Kelly again and to stay away for a long time. He again, tried to hand me money. This time, I was enraged and asked him what he thought it would do.
Just prior to him handing me money, he tried to hand it to Kelly and she screamed at him, “What do you think I’m a prostitute you fucking asshole!?”
His response was, “Rich girls like money.” I told him that he could never buy respect and that his actions were inexcusable in any state of mind. My friends were around me and they were not as upset as I was, because they had seen him act like this. They had a different emotion. Jubilation.
They had never seen a girl stand up to this guy before, and they loved every second of it. They already knew that Kelly didn’t take shit from anyone, as she’s spoken up before. My friends were behind me laughing and joking about how Kelly was a “ninja” and how she was bending and twisting this kid’s arm like it was a twizzler. Instead of being angry with me, they were happy for Kelly.
At this point, I was extremely confused – not at how my friends were reacting, but how I should be feeling. As you read earlier, I was slightly angered by his actions, enough to want to hurt him – but I was also impressed with Kelly’s actions. A part of me felt like I should have intervened much earlier and stopped this action before it escalated. A part of me felt like I “bitched out” because I didn’t inflict physical pain on this kid, I felt ashamed that I didn’t respond like a man is expected to respond. I felt embarrassed that I didn’t explode on the kid in the name of Kelly.
I also felt immense respect for Kelly because she handled herself exactly the way I would want her to. I was proud that my friend’s were excited by her actions, and honored to be with her and associated with her. But I still felt, and still feel emasculated. I felt like Kelly reacted the way I should have, and I sat back and watched the show.
I walked over to the bathrooms, where Kelly was watching over a friend of ours. I told her how proud I was and how amazing she was. I also told her that I felt like a complete scumbag for not doing what my mind wanted me to do. She told me that from an outside perspective, if she hits him and hurts him, it is self defense. If people saw me hurting him, then it’s a vicious attack and/or a bar fight. She told me that if I did what I wanted to, that I could be sitting in the back of a police car and the other guy could be in the back of an ambulance. She told me that by restraining myself, I likely kept myself out of court and out of trouble. I knew what she was saying was true, and while it brought a bit of comfort to me, I was still boiling with hatred.
The kid was brought to my friend’s apartment and Kelly and I stayed back to look for a missing purse. I wandered outside for nearly an hour, in the rain, looking under cars, in bushes – anywhere. I thought of what I would do if I stole a purse, about how I would empty the purse and leave it behind. I feared the worst the entire time and walked back inside, dejected, again. I had to tell our friend, who was already sick, who was already approached by “the guy” and insulted, that her purse was gone. I told Kelly that I would walk her out while Kelly grabbed her final belongings. On our way out, we passed the bar and took one last peek, nothing to be found. As Kelly rounded the final corner and just before I opened the door to the outside, someone from behind the bar called for Kelly and handed her the lost purse.
We got outside and I finally had a smile on my face, at least tonight wasn’t going to end in a complete disaster. We loaded our friend into the car and drove home cautiously in the rain. We brought her inside, and made sure she was comfortably on the couch, under a blanket, and prepared for the worst to fall out of her stomach (a trash can was ready for that).
A couple of my friends were at my apartment, as it was still an early night. As I began walking inside I met up with them and began to vent. I told them that I was incredibly upset as his behavior and that I felt terrible that I didn’t respond. One of my friends, who is a very good friend as far as friends are concerned, stopped me and told me that everything I was feeling was normal and acceptable. He also told me that if I wanted to, we could go to his apartment now and beat this kid unmercifully. He then told me that this kid has done this many times before, and that while anger is acceptable, I should instead reflect on how Kelly reacted, and be comforted in knowing that she can defend herself effectively.
We walked inside and all sat down in the living room. We praised Kelly for her valiant actions and laughed as we recalled the events from the night. One of my friends suggested that we get a bit of revenge on the kid, since he was passed out nearby. Without any hesitation I took him up on his offer and exited the apartment with three other friends.
We walked over to the next building, marched upstairs, picked him up, and simply threw him in the dumpster. After we tossed him into the dumpster, I walked with another friend across the street to grab some beer. We talked a bit more and returned to my friend’s apartment to hear him yelling at the kid. He was screaming, “Don’t you ever touch Launchpad’s girl! We did this for Launchpad!”
It felt great knowing that I had a group of friends who were willing to help me feel better, even if it meant tossing a friend of theirs in a dumpster. We all walked back to my apartment and closed out the night by playing some video games and laughing about the night.
When our friend woke up on the couch we told her what we had done and how the final parts of the night pieced together. She laughed a bit, and was glad to hear that she had met some guys who were also willing to help her out, even after only knowing her for a short while.
I went to bed that night with a tiny bit of satisfaction, and an ounce of regret. I still wanted to act out my mind’s desires. Although, as I reflect, I’m not sure if I’d ever be satisfied enough. I’m sure at this point, while I may be happy he was hurt, I would still be feeling the same thing. I know that I’m not ready to confront this kid, simply because I’ve been thinking too much and I don’t want to overreact. I’m not sure, at this point, if I can ever respect him in the same light that I did before, and to me, it is a huge loss; for him.
My mind still churns and plays out the different scenarios from that night. I still feel the angst and the aggression, even today. Now I struggle with the confusion on which part do I need to focus on the most? Do I focus on releasing my anger for how I did not react, or do I focus on forgiveness and a return to normalcy? I’m not sure if I can answer that question at this point.
