The Mirror

I hope Sean rises above me

I had a friend at an old work place many years ago who told me a great story about swearing.  I'll give you a bit of a set up.  I use colorful language a good deal.  Now I don't use it in front of my kids, or my wife really, and in many situations at work I would never use it, but around my co-workers or buddies I let more than my fair share of four letter words fly.  I worked with a guy (I wish I remembered his name) who noticed this about me and said something like...

"You know Andy, you are an intelligent and quite articulate person, but for whatever reason you seem to use a lot of vulgar language, why?"  I stood sorta quiet and responded "Well, I guess I don't want to limit the vocabulary I use to express myself and don't feel that all words capture the same meaning as some of my more colorful language"

This of course is only half true, there are far more colorful language than your typical swear words, and when used with the right panache are vastly superior than the pedestrian language I claim to have impact.  Now this guy, we will call him Peter, was in his mid to late 50s and at the time would have been my Dad's age, he had been married for about 30 years and was really a great guy as I recall.  All that said he continued with a great story.

"Well, when I was young I went to Vietnam and it changed how I spoke.  I would insert "Fuck" into every other word, and it became the only way I seemed to express myself, I was very angry.  Well I finally got to come home after being shot and that is when I met my wife.  We started dating and it was great, but my limited vocabulary I employed started to catch up to me, and the ugly language I used seemed to bother her.  So my now wife, then girlfriend, began to start using the same language.  She was cursing as much if not more than me, and it sounded terrible.  I could finally hear what I sounded like, and I didn't like it at all.  It wasn't long before I stopped using that language."

This story was told to me about 10 years to early.  At the time I was 20 or 21, didn't have kids, and my girlfriend at the time was the same age, and I can't recall if I cursed as much, but I most likely did.  It took being married before I decided to attempt to curb my language.  That notion of a "mirror" showing you your actions though was rather profound to me.

As I have began "raising" my kids things I do become now far more apparent.  Phrases my wife and I use can come back to haunt us.  It is funny that having kids would make me more self-aware, but it really has.  Whether it is Legos, comic books, or the kids love of back scratches like their mom.  Our kids have begun mirroring many things that my wife and I are.  All of the sudden me being inconsiderate, or a smart ass has taken on a new meaning to me.  Those are not traits I want my children to have, and that means I can't have them either.

It's curious how raising a child to be the person you hope they can be, requires you to be the person you should be.

Being Quiet

I got off of work this morning, it was a bit early, around 6 am and being a Sunday morning the road was near bare, the sun had yet to rise and all I wanted to do was sit outside in the brisk air and drink coffee, maybe write.  I was feeling contemplative about the last decade as I heard children read names of lost parents from that fateful day years ago.  I wanted to express how different I am from 20-30, and how my children have changed me. I didn't write or sit or think at all though.  I got home, and there was coffee, but I needed to sleep, I was tired and I crawled into my bed, my boys were already awake and getting cozy with their mommy.  

Now nearly 18 hours later I was about to go to bed, and instead decided to enjoy the silence for only a moment.  I wanted to have a moment to sit with my thoughts, allow them to ruminate in my head, a chance to think about where I am.  

As a parent, I think being quiet has become my biggest challenge.  I'm not referring to the obvious, "Well you do talk a lot Andy", but specifically sitting in my thoughts and actively engaging my inner monologue so to speak, just listening, and finding out what I hear.

I understand my dad more and more every day, after being married, having children, and starting a career.  But I think my most recent realization is why my dad wakes up so early, when it is quiet, drinks his coffee and reads, or journals, or just relaxes.  I didn't get that before I had kids, but today as I sit in the quiet of my home, listening to the ceiling fan spin I think I realize why my dad gets up so early.  I can't say for sure , but I know I like to sit in the quiet to give me a chance to just hear myself, and sometimes that is the hardest person to hear.

The Wedding Ring

Our Wedding Rings Circa 2005

I don't always wear my wedding ring.  In fact I forget to put it on all the time, after the shower, after cooking, or after I put hair gel in.  I might go a day or more without it, though more than that is rare.  Many guys at my work claim safety issues with wearing a ring, and thus don't wear theirs.  But I am proud to be married, my ring is a symbol for others, not just me, that marriage is not only something to be proud of, but something to show others can be positive.  

I don't rag on married life in front of others to be part of the "in-crowd" and if I do talk about marriage I try to be as honest as I can about it, witnessing to the 360 degree view of marriage rather than focusing on mainly the negative or only the positive.  I want people to know that it is possible to be happily married and  my ring is one way I do that.

One gorgeous day my wife and I drove to the Jewelry exchange in Tustin and picked out my ring, a simple hammered white gold band, nothing fancy.  As I recall it didn't cost more than $300 or $400.  We never got our rings engraved, her rings were too thin, and it just didn't seem like something that was important to do, the ring was the symbol, and to be honest I don't think we ever thought to do it.  As my wife slid my wedding ring on my finger on our wedding day she said "Andrew, take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."  And like that the first and only piece of jewelry I have ever had entered my life.

Since our wedding we have attended many weddings, all different, all beautiful in their own way.  Chris and Heather had a gorgeous  Catholic ceremony, but easily the most memorable moment for us was the In N Out Double Doubles for dinner at the reception.  Matt and Marissa had the most beautiful outdoor ceremony for us, there were bins full of Chinese style bright orange umbrellas for the guests. As we waited outside for the wedding to begin it was like were sitting in a field of poppies.  But little did I know that my great friend Ernie and Katie's most memorable aspect of their wedding would be discovered over and year and a half later.

I work with Mauricio, and he and I went out for food one workday in March.  We went to a favorite Thai place and sat down for our usual fare.  Conversation isn't too huge there since it is always crowded and loud, but the food is worth the mediocre environment.   Mauricio isn't married, but in a long term committed relationship with his girlfriend of 10 years.

"Can I see your ring?"  Mauricio asked as I sat twisting my ring on my finger.

I took off my ring and answered "Sure" as I dropped my ring into his hand.  He picked up the ring and started to examine it.

"Hey bro, do you have anything inscribed inside your wedding ring?"  Mauricio asked nonchalantly.  

"Nope, I think it just says 14k, but no words or our anniversary" I replied

"Huh, that's weird cause there is definitely something inscribed inside your ring" he muttered back as he attempted to read it.

"Dude, no there isn't, you actually already tried that joke before" I rebutted.

Mauricio casually looked up, looked back down at the ring and retorted, "Um, seriously there is something inside your ring it says..."Ernie and Katie 8-21-2009"

My face dropped instantly.  "That's not possible" I whispered.  But sure enough it had to be true, Mauricio barely knew Ernie and Katie, and he definitely wouldn't know their anniversary.

"Let me see that"

He handed me back my ring and sure enough I had Ernie's ring.  

Mauricio was convinced that I have had the ring since their actual wedding day, but he would be wrong.  The last time I saw Ernie was in December for my 30th birthday.  It was a 4 day trip to Vegas with all our significant others and one of the dinners was a huge BBQ.  Remember I always take my ring off when I cook, and Ernie was mixing the chicken up with the BBQ sauce and took his ring off then.  I know this is hard to believe but we have very similar looking rings and so the next day probably for me I reached down and grabbed a ring.  I don't even remember if two rings were right there when I picked up the wrong ring.  Regardless it took my coworker looking 3 months later for me to realize I had the wrong ring.

Our rings side by side 

(mine is on the left)

We immediately went to scheming on how I could get Ernie in "Trouble"  I mean surely how in the world could he not know he didn't have his ring?  (How could I not know I had my ring?).  Maybe I could make it look like he "lost" his ring and replaced it.  I'd get Katie to play along and make a fuss before the big reveal.  I texted her and had to talk right away.  

03/23/11 (My actual text message)

Me: This is Andy's Google voice number. I will call you when I wake up. It'll be around 5 pm pacific . This will be an epic story. 8:04 AM

Katie Rodriguez: haha, Ernie claims otherwise :) I look forward to seeing if he's wrong. I will await your call around 5pm pacific time. 8:40 AM

Ernie was of course wrong, he was convinced that I couldn't have anything on him, since the last time we saw him was Vegas and he spent the entire with her AND I.  I talked with Katie and it was immediately apparent that we couldn't surprise him.  It turns out a month earlier he was sitting on the couch with her and asked about the engraving since it "wore" off.  Turns out neither his wife nor my wife realized we had the wrong ring, and even Katie believed the engraving just wore off.  Regardless we couldn't do a "Gotcha moment."  I had Katie and Ernie conference call me and her and I made the big reveal, and even Ernie had to admit it was "Epic" and as I put it at the time "This is going to be something we will talk about for our entire lives." 

We began to talk about getting the right rings back, but it wasn't feasible, and we didn't think that we should mail them, I mean what if they got lost.  So for the next nearly 6 months we knowingly wore the wrong ring; and each celebrated one wedding anniversary.  Some of our friends thought it was silly, once I realized I had the wrong ring I did think the ring was smaller than I remembered mine being, but I have put on some weight that is probably why it is snug.  I did my normal thing, forgetting it occasionally, taking it off to cook, all sorts of normal life and only found it odd when I thought about it. 

Ernie and Katie live in Washington D.C. so seeing them soon was a ways off, it wasn't until they had a wedding, of all things, over Labor Day weekend when we would see them next.  Ernie and I planned a dinner the day before the wedding.  That night over some beers and appetizers we traded rings.  We didn't even trade right away, it was easily a few hours into the evening, we actually started talking about the wedding he was in town for, and all of the sudden I realized "Shoot!  We need to trade rings back." 

The trade

And just like that, practically 9 months after I accidently traded rings, I had my wedding ring of 6+ years back.  And it turned out his ring was smaller than mine.