The night before it happened swore I
wouldn’t be 30 years-old until 3:53 PM, the minute I came out screaming. I
wrote a journal entry. It said, “I am saying goodbye to my 20’s. I don’t know
what happened to them. All I can remember is a lot of painful growing up
followed by the hard realization that I am a late bloomer.
“I will be 30 when I finally
graduate with a bachelor’s. Oh well, at least I was married and had my first
child before the decade turned . . . barely.”
I woke up that cool October morning
and went to a baptism. My wife’s youngest brother was baptized by his Dad. It
was a bittersweet goodbye to the baby of the family, and a fresh hello to the
newest kid.
I had been scheduled to work.
That’s how much I cared for this
day.
My wife, ten years my junior, is
still alive with vibrance and energy. She had a wide smile and was bouncing,
tugging at my sleeve, telling me to call in sick. When she exuded that energy
it was like she held control of my free will. I obeyed on condition that my
father-in-law, a practicing physician, write me a sick note.
He complied and we left Rexburg,
Idaho forthwith.
She rarely drove.
This time she was insistent. She is
also a master distractor. I was thinking less about the last hours of my 20’s
and more about where she was taking me. The further south we drove the more I
ran numbers through my head; gas expense, mileage, the budget to be expended
upon arrival, the hours used, and the energy required to act surprised and
happy. I was hesitant to spoil myself these days. I had been paying for the
same stupid splurges for two years.
When we crossed the Utah state line,
all I could do was speculate on the destination. Halfway there I started to
feel a little spunky. I took a cell phone picture of myself and sent it to my
friends and family with the caption, “30, and still so fine.” I received
replies from everyone.
When we arrived in the metropolitan
area of Salt Lake City we had been driving for three hours. She continued on.
We went over the point of the
mountain and suddenly we were not moving anymore. Traffic was stacked all the
way down the hill. October was hotter down here and I worried about the car
overheating. We were averaging four miles an hour for thirty minutes but the
temperature held.
When we finally cleared the wreck we
could see that some idiot hadn’t learned how to set his trailer on the hitch.
We dodged pieces of Jayco as we came off the point into happy valley. As I
looked around I felt like I hadn’t been absent from this place long enough.
Although it had grown and changed, everything looked the same.
This was one of those places where I
had had some hard growing-up experiences. Nevertheless, I felt like a visitor.
My wife called her mother and told me
to plug my ears and hum to myself. Once again, I complied. This was one big
surprise already and I wasn’t about to ruin the crescendo.
She smiled, nodded, and took the
next exit. We went over the pass with my wife muttering, “Where is it. She said
it was on the – RIGHT!”
She pulled into a parking lot
between a Conoco and a restaurant. All I could see was a huge Cal Ranch store
in the back and I thought there must be a killer sale here or something. Then
she took another hard right into the parking lot in front of the restaurant.
She put it in park and smiled at me.
I looked at the windows that were
painted with an unfamiliar something and then I looked up. It was called The
Sushi House.
“It’s all you can eat,” she said.
She was a tense ball of expectation. She wore a precarious smile that would
either bloom or break depending on what I had to say. I found that I didn’t
have to expend the energy to act surprised or happy.
In this moment I had peace. I knew I
was married to a genuine person who loved me in spite of all the flaws,
mistakes, scars, and reality that was me. My smile was huge. Then my dry humor
came out.
“’Better be good sushi for a three
and a half-hour drive.”
She laughed because she knows me.
We went inside and were sat in a
largely empty dining room. The waitress handed us a slip of paper. Printed on
it were 30 or more different sushi roll styles. We could have as many rolls as
we wanted for $18.99 per person.
We ordered 14.
I knew, as soon as I tasted the
first roll that my sushi experience was forever ruined. This was so delicious
and authentic that I knew that I could not go to my local sushi bar with the
same excitement again. We ate until we were fit for a good, long nap, paid our
bill, and waddled out to the car.
“It’s a good surprise?” she kept
asking.
“Wonderful surprise, honey. Thank
you.” I kept replying.
She took us back onto the Interstate
and headed north. My next birthday present was waiting on 3300 South in Salt
Lake. On the trip there we talked about the day so far and I had another
surprise.
I hadn’t thought about turning 30
for hours. 3:53 PM passed without my acknowledgement. I was happy not to focus
on it.
After a harrowing exit and about 36
traffic lights we turned left into a tiny strip mall. There sitting where it
had for years and years was Dr. Volt’s Comic Book Shop. I was on the verge of
tears. Inside this small shop was rich plethora of comics from all over fandom.
Weeks could be spent here and you’d never read them all.
We arrived 30 minutes before close
and I enjoyed every second. This was such a birthday! The sushi was settling
well, the comics were top rate, written in conjunction with a story by the
insanely talented Geoff Johns, and we still had hours till we were home.
The greatest element of my marital
relationship is our ability to be the best of friends and talk, which we did
for as long as she could keep those big, beautiful eyes open.
This was an elemental day, a day in
which the eternal love of my wife was shown to me. I am grateful to have had
such a strong start to a new decade and, like Tim Mcgraw vowed, “My next thirty
years will be the best years of my life, raise a little family and hang out
with my wife, spend precious moments with the ones that I hold dear, make up
for lost time here, in my next thirty years.”
Thank you my darling Rachel.
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