A Grown-up Who Hasn't Grown Up

It’s been three weeks since I started a new job in Chicago. And I have to say, I’m really enjoying it. I walk about a mile and a half a day going to and from where my friend and I park at, so I’m getting some good exercise every day. I get to walk past the Sears Tower every day (the Willis Tower? What choo talkin’ bout?), and then a nice walk near the Canal before I get to work. There’s usually a guy out playing the sax in the morning; the music just echoes off the buildings. Quite nice. Not that I didn’t like my previous job, but there’s just something about the city I enjoy immensely.

Life is funny. I remember thinking once when I first got married that we wouldn’t really need much to get by.  But, as so often happens, the more money I made, the more money we spent.  Wonderful children.  A new house.  Car.  Van. Various et ceteras.  I never expected to be in the position I am in now.  I’m not sure I ever had very high expectations of myself, if any at all.  Just to work hard and see where I ended up.  I often feel like the rug is going to be pulled out from under me.

I’m not sure why God has been and continues to be so good to me.  I feel like I let him down more often than not.  I’m very thankful any how.

So often my expectations are completely off.

It all started in a math class that we had together in middle school; I have a vague memory of her sitting across the room from me. But we didn’t really get to know each other until our senior year of high school. We started out as having a few mutual friends. I was in orchestra, playing the violin, and she was in band, playing the flute. We had a few mutual friends, so we saw each other often.

One way or the other, I ended up being Jill’s chemistry tutor (which, looking back, is kind of amazing, because I really did poorly in chemistry in college, and it’s a subject I really have no interest in. I guess it must have been a little more interesting in high school). We also had an economic class, so we were seeing more and more of each other. One of the first things I really noticed about Jill was how fun she was to be around. She had one of the greatest smiles, and a great laugh. It was hard not to have a fun time when she was around (all of these things are still true today, and more so!). All our study groups usually ended up in a bunch of kids laughing and having a good time, but somehow still managing to get some studying done.

One night, after a basketball or football game, I believe, our high school held a little dance that a lot of our friends were going to, so it ended up that we were both there, but without anyone to dance with. One way or the other, we ended up spending the evening dancing around with each other, purposely bumping into other couples, and laughing it up. For me, that was when I really fell for her. We didn’t start officially dating until December 1, 1998, but we kind of played “cat and mouse” with each other for awhile before that. I asked her out a few times, and she actually turned me down! She had her reasons, but eventually I wore her down :)

We dated all the way through our senior year and through college. But there were some bumps in the road. Jill went away for college in Minnesota, and I stayed in Indiana to go to Purdue. I remember that before she left, we went to get a bite to eat, and she gave me a letter she had written, listing all the reasons why we should break up before she left for college. I must have presented a good counter-argument though, and we decided to give a long-distance relationship a try.

This was a rough stretch for Jill and I. I was a much, much different person back then. The biggest difference being was that I wasn’t a Christian until our junior year of college, and I lived a much different lifestyle than Jill. I partied, played Dungeons and Dragons, World of Warcraft and EverQuest, stayed up really late and woke up around noon. I was a pretty poor student during my college year, something I really regret. Jill, on the flip side, went to a Bible college, and was a very good student. We broke up a few times, each time being my fault.

But, I remember, after having become a Christian, Jill was in town, and we had been broken up for a few months. This was during our junior year of college, so we had been together, off and on, for over 3 years. I was still in love with her, but I didn’t think she was in love with me anymore, so I felt I had to move on. But I felt obligated to tell her this. So we met in the parking lot of a church close to her home. I remember us both sitting in my car, and Jill had gotten her wisdom teeth out recently, so she was still recovering from that. I explained my feelings to her, and, much to my surprise, she still loved me and wanted to get back together!

Well, it wasn’t long after this that we started discussing getting married, an idea that we were both much in favor of! It happened at the time that I was working at a jewelry store, so Jill and I decided to go ring-shopping. Jill actually picked out her wedding ring, though I don’t think she knew it at the time. I could not wait to marry this wonderful woman! I bough the ring shortly after and, of course, showed it off to my family and friends. I surprised her one night after she had driven back home from Minnesota and asked her to marry me, to which she replied through tears, “I’m going to throw up!”

We were married after Jill graduated from college and moved back to Indiana. I still had a semester of college left (I had started my college studies in computer engineering. It took me one semester to figure out I didn’t want anything to do with that, and switched my major to computer programming). We were married July 27, 2002, at Bethel Church in Crown Point, Indiana. Jill’s cousin videotaped the ceremony and my father copied it to DVD, a fact I’m very glad for. I just watched it again with our daughter just a few weeks before writing this!