I met Kyle, in the hallway of our high school, headed to a class I can't remember. He was wearing ripped jeans, a white polo, and checkered vans. I wrote in my journal that he was the type of guy I needed to watch out for. He knows, I gave him that page of my journal years ago.
You see, I was born in Nashville, but moved to Texas when I was four years old. I went to school K-10th grade with the same friends. In the middle of 10th grade, we moved "home" to Tennessee. It was my idea, and I was pissed about it [more on that another day].
Fast forward two years, and I turned Kyle down as my date to Senior prom. Actually, that's the short story we always tell. The truth is, he never asked me to Prom. My friends told him I was probably going to say no. He saved himself the embarrassment. I probably wouldn't have had the heart to say no. There's a lesson in that somewhere... I digress.
I didn't want to go to prom with Kyle because he had a reputation. The one you'd expect a guy to have, whose name graced a scrapbooks worth of newspaper articles. He was a football star. King of that little world. You know, the corner of the hall way where all of that clique stands between class. This story could get really long, so I'll get to the point.
Kyle turns 31 today. I've known Kyle almost as long as I haven't. We've done a lot of life together. Sometimes, when our relationship gets hard, I let myself believe that the Kyle I was afraid to go to Prom with is the real Kyle. It's a deep rooted fear. A final wall to protect my heart from shattering. An expectation of disappointment. I've probably got a few hundred more hours of therapy needed to unpack all of that, buy here's what I know to be true today: We all make poor choices in life. Those choices don't definitely us. What defines us is how we respond.
Kyle and I have grown up together. Not the age where your parents raise you, but the part after that. When you have to grow on your own. When you start to choose who you want to be in life. I've watched Kyle grow into the man of my dreams. A man that makes our family proud. A man I can only hope our boys will grow up to become. Not because of his lack of mistakes, but because of his responses to then. He chooses works hard, has fun, and love deeply. He chooses to fights for me, for our marriage, and for our boys; especially when we don't deserve it.
Nobody's perfect, but I'm sure glad Kyle's mine. Happy Birthday Kyle! Hope 31 is your best year yet!