The Long Walk Home

the long walk home
for my married friends
2010-11
 
do you remember what it was like the first time you walked home from school with that girl who made you think about girls differently?  she took your breath away; made your heart skip a beat.  the cooties were gone and this person who made you feel a bit giddy emerged.  how long did it take you to work up the nerve to talk to her.  was it a "meet-cute", or did you screw up your courage and charge forward risking emotional life and limb?
 
at some point, thru some vaguely remembered series of events, there you were, walking next to her.  did you carry her books?  any other day the walk home seems so long, but with her next to you, the time flies and the distance shrinks.  you try your best to be mr. smooth but everything about her makes your head fuzzy and your tongue fat.  you feel like a complete failure....  but she's still there next to you, walking side by side.
 
finally, you arrive at her house.  where did the time go?  what happens now?  she turns from the sidewalk toward her front door and you follow.  you have forgotten that you are holding her books and she turns to take them.  you think she is reaching for you, not the books.  panic strikes.  you freeze.  she takes her books and you're left vacillating between relieved and disappointed.  she smiles and says "see you tomorrow" and disappears thru the door.  you floated home, but you’d never admit it to your pals.
 
fast forward to your wedding day.  you are standing at the front of the room and she enters.  once again you feel that uncontrollable breathlessness.  all those things you felt on that first walk with whatever her name was are now amplified a hundred-fold.  you asked if you could walk her home and she said yes.  you are about to take those first steps together but this walk has a different destination.  sure, you'll walk out your front door and back in thousands of times in the days ahead.  some walks will be blissful and others not so much.  you'll walk thru everything that life brings your way.  You are walking home.  day by day.  good and bad.  rich or poor.  healthy or sick. 
 
she said yes and home is up ahead somewhere, just out of sight - but you both know it is there.  she said yes to taking the walk with you.  she said yes to the idea that no matter what happens along the way, when the walk is over and the front door comes into view, she wanted to be with you. 
 
gentlemen...  think about this the next time she squeezes the toothpaste wrong.  think about the humbling honor she bestowed on you.
 
enjoy the walk because she picked you. 
enjoy the walk because it doesn't last forever.  
enjoy the walk because the whole point is to make it home.