10 Years Later…

14 years ago I met the woman of my dreams. She was a television news producer, I was a television director. And thus…a match made in heaven. From there we moved to Phoenix, hated the heat, moved back to Cincinnati and proceeded to co-habitate in a great 2-level apartment overlooking the city skyline. 2 years after that we were engaged.

10 years ago, on October 14th, 2000, my wife and I were married on a warm autumn evening in Lakewood, KY. It was a relatively small ceremony consisting of mostly work friends and our families and, like most weddings, it seemed like it was over in the blink of an eye. I cried during the ceremony. I think the reason I cried was because it hit me that the woman who was standing by my side was someone I was willing to love forever, die for and never take for granted. This was the woman I had always wanted. She was beautiful, resilient, self-motivated and caring to a fault. She was all I could ever want and, in my mind, she was out of my league. What she ever saw in me is beyond me, but there we were…exchanging vows…and my life would never be the same.

Little did I know what the future had in store for us. As we proceed from one stage to the next in such rapid succession, our lives are in a constant state of evolving. Our relationship has changed so much in 10 years with the addition of 2 children, a home and multiple jobs. When we were married, Stephanie was the primary bread winner in our home, I was just getting started with the 2nd stage of my career. Today she is a stay-at-home mother with more responsibilities than I could ever bear. She is the constant in our children’s lives as I work hard to keep up with our ever changing times. Of course, at the heart of most matters is money and the lack of it. Often times I am working to support our family monetarily as she supports it emotionally. This, in many instances, is a sticking point but we have both made our share of adjustments as we face these realities head on. 10 years of trying to get ahead and working to give our children the best we can offer has its moments of hardships, but I would hardly call us “divided.” On the contrary, despite the differences that we might have, in most cases we have found that we are both fighting for a common cause, just in different ways.

10 years ago, my wife became my partner and we set out on this journey. One could say it has had its ups & downs. One could say that it has been interesting to watch us change with the times. And one could say that, at times, we have been swimming upstream. But the one thing that no one could ever say about my wife and I is that our lives are boring or contrived. If anything, we strive on adversity. We fight for what we believe in and we have laid a strong foundation with our children that I hope they will carry with them through the rest of their lives.

My wife and I have shared some wonderful times and I am hoping that she would share them with me all over again if given the opportunity. It has been an amazing 10 years. And this week we will be celebrating by taking a few days off for ourselves. Off to Napa and a few bottles of wine and then to Los Angeles for the wedding of a dear friend. Here’s hoping for a relaxing and uneventful trip…because for us…that would be something TOTALLY different! 🙂

The entire crew