When I was 19, I took a night job at a laundromat in Sharon Springs cleaning the baseball uniforms for the players of the Cooperstown Dreams Park. In August of that year, I met two 17 year old boys, Mark and Matt, each of whom would become my Husbands. Not at the same time, mind you. But on that warm Summer evening I met the first and final love of my life.
Mark was a stocky boy, shy and chuckley, and he got a total kick out of me. With his blonde hair, jnco jeans, watermelon chapstick, and clever outlook on the world, it didn’t take me long before I wanted to be around this guy ALL of the time.
Matt was a pimply-faced, chubby boy who never looked my way and never said a word to me, but as the night dragged on, I stayed awake just to hear his laugh ring through the entire laundromat. I thought he had a laugh that made God happy that He created earth, and every time I heard it my heart wanted to dance.
Mark and I began dating that August and on December 2nd (4 months later and 3 days after his 18th birthday), we were married. We moved into a tiny apartment together, and I worked two jobs so he could finish high school. I recall that our first fight was over him not wearing his wedding ring to school. Our marriage lasted three very turbulent and challenging years that I can now chalk up to immaturity and financial burdens, but at the time it was an agonizing and heart-wrenching life lesson that still hurts sometimes. I knew we were young, I knew life was hard, and I knew we had jumped in fast – but I believed that if two people really love each other they can make it against all odds and that despite what little hope there ever seemed to be on the horizon…I loved him, I knew he loved me, and one day we would look back and be glad we had stuck it out. I thought of how I would one day have a 50th anniversary and I would sing to him our wedding song by Shania Twain “From This Moment” and then I would sing Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One” and that thought alone kept me holding on long past when there was anything to hold on to.
Oh it was horrible! Divorce – even without kids, or a house, anything to split up (not even a dog) – is still just the crummiest thing, and if you ever want to feel like a giant failure…be sure to get divorced by the time you’re 22 years old. I do hold the record in my family for shortest marriage and first to divorce. I was even divorced before my parents. So there I was, 22 years old, divorced and really messed up over a bad relationship that had gone to some dark and ugly places.
At this time, I started dating Steve, and you can read all about that in my blog https://www.albany.com/balabusta/2014/01/a-yellow-pair-of-running-shoes.html, but the short of it is that we spent three years together, and it was another sad ending. During the time that I was with Steve, Matt – that other boy from the laundromat – and I started to hang out a bit and chat on the phone. We were all from a small town so everybody knew each other and we bumped into each other in the same circles now and then. I always had a lot of friends who were guys, so it was not strange for Steve to come home to find me hanging out with one of my guy friends. I was that girl who was “like a sister” to everyone. So, one afternoon Matt came over to watch some Superman movies with me while Steve was at work. We had so much fun. I remember one scene where Superman said “I’ve never seen garbage eat garbage before” and we rewound and watched it over and over laughing until we cried. At one point we had tied bath towels around our necks like capes and sat on the couch giggling and memorizing movie lines. When Matt left that day I felt guilty. I had never felt guilty after spending the day with my guy friends, so I confessed to Steve. He had known Matt for years, so he knew that Matt was respectable and would never make a move on his girlfriend. Steve said he didn’t care at all and was glad we could be such good friends. At the time, I wasn’t aware of having any feelings for Matt (although, I suspected he might for me), but I knew it didn’t feel right, so I stopped talking to him or hanging out with him. It wasn’t a big deal, and I never said “we are officially no longer friends”. I just distanced myself and let the friendship fall apart.
“That’s funny, I’ve never seen garbage eat garbage before.”
Looking back, I know that I had a lot of feelings for Matt that I never let myself admit to at the time. He was a 20-year-old unemployed video-gamer who lived with his mother and used to have a crush on my sister. I guess you could say “not my type” (or so I thought).
Well, then it happened and WOW, it took my for a spin. In September of 2006 (six years after I had met those two boys), after my marriage had fallen apart, my fiance dumped me, and I was living with my ex-in laws trying to pick up the pieces of what seemed to be a shattered life…I went to a party at my neighbor’s house. There was a bonfire, and I was drinking a beer when all of a sudden my ears heard the most beautiful noise in all the world. It was Matt’s laughter! I looked across the lawn, and there was this gorgeous man whose image flickered in the light of the bonfire. Tall, dark hair and handsome with a newsie cap on and a giant smile. That picture is burned in my brain for all eternity. That moment I fell hopelessly in love with the man who would become my forever husband, the father of my children, and my partner in life. As I walked over to say hello, I could not believe how gorgeous he had become. He was slimmed down, his once pimply face now had a handsome beard, and his blue eyes pierced from under his Irish hat and I thought “I’m going to marry this man!”
Sure…it took me a long time to convince him that was a good idea…even longer to move him off the mountain where he was living the life of luxury, playing video games all day, and yes…even longer to convince him that he should get a job…BUT he did! He married me, he got a job at GE, he bought me a house, and he gave me two beautiful boys. To this very day, there is no sound in the world that tickles my heart like his laugh. His happiness is my greatest joy, and when I really stop to think about it, I realize that has been true since the night I met him 14 years ago.
Matt is my best friend, my heart has always loved his, but my eyes took a long time to see him – my favorite and my only forever husband – the first and final love of my life.
