My father never offered his advice about girls, though I understand he was moderately popular with them; and after thirty years of marriage you think he’d have something valuable to say. He never spoke about the secret of his marital success or how to make relationships work. He never shared how a woman’s character and integrity are more important than her personality or the color of her hair. He never counseled me to look through her eyes to what hides behind them, and he didn’t caution that in this world there are ordinary girls and girls of a different kind - or how to tell the difference.
His neglect would plague me for more than twenty years.
My impression of women and relationships, for most of my adult life, can be summarized like this; if she was marginally alcoholic, somewhat trampy, overly desperate, and was just attractive enough to bolster my ego I believe she had sufficient criteria for a girlfriend, and if she stayed faithful maybe even a wife. But I would gladly negotiate on any of them for the right set of implants. I’m profoundly insecure and, absent that moral barometer to gauge them, I quickly latched on to anyone showing the slightest interest and just narcissistic enough to get distracted by another possessing similar attributes in greater abundance. Tissue-thin character is exceptionally unreliable.
But sensuality will never compensate for sincerity and shallow relationships quickly evaporate from the heat of bourgeois passions. But to learn that valuable lesson would take the failure of a marriage, four years of what Renée Pascal termed ‘licking the earth’, and a dose of heavenly inspiration. Only through enduring one failed relationship on top of another did I finally understand that anything honorable and lasting can never take root and thrive in a cesspool of self-indulgence.
__
The Queen came into my life as I was emerging from the isolation and darkness of an emotional winter. During that journey I suffered the brutally cold consequences of a thousand bad choices. I made it through those lonely agonizing months reading, praying, and relearning everything I believed I knew about women, love, and relationships. Walking out of that gloomy forest my confidence was ravished but my spirit rejuvenated. Only through a crystal clear understanding - acknowledging my motivations and accepting the responsibility for my deepest regrets - could I set my foot on a nobler path that might lead to a higher place.
She and I believe our relationship was sparked with the flint of divine intervention; the timing was no mere coincidence, nor was it by circumstance that our first date, the next morning, took place at the church we unknowingly both attended. No two people could have been more prepared for each other. She also had spent the better part of a year ‘getting right with herself’ and was admittedly different than who she once was. But without my time in the wilderness I would not have had the clearness of vision or the cleanness of soul to recognize that this woman, broken and restored, was no ordinary person but was, in fact, what I had been praying for on so many of those cold dark nights alone.
__
This week makes our fifth year on this journey, together. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before I struggle to find the proper words that adequately exemplify the influence it, and more importantly she, has had on my life. The Queen is the one and only woman on the planet or off it. No other comes into my field of vision. She is first, and every other woman is nowhere. I want to spend the rest of my life in her presence.
Her patience and understanding are mythical, virtue spotless, and her culinary salad skills are now legendary. My respect for her is limitless and her wisdom and motherhood inspire me to be a better father. She is my greatest friend, my deepest desire, and is now my future bride – all because she is a girl of a different kind.
Thank you for five wonderful years, my Queen. I love you most!