Last night Pat and I went out and celebrated seven years of marriage. Just babies, I know….but it FEELS like a long time. A really. long. time.
And it has been. Pat and I dated for five years before we were married…so really it’s been 12 years of commitment.
He’s very happy. I swear.
Let’s go back shall we? To the very first moment I laid eyes on my future husband:
I tried out for Club volleyball when I was 15 years old.
That’s not true. I made the “develop mental” team when I was 14, but the club was new and didn’t quite have their act together. I didn’t know when practices were and nothing was really organized yet and I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about being called “develop mental” so I decided to quit.
The following year I chose to try out again. After the two day testing of skills all of the coaches got together and discussed the players and took turns picking which ones they wanted on their team.
Little did any of us know at the time, but the course of the rest of my life hung in the hands of a bunch of guys trying to make good volleyball. I certainly wasn’t good enough for the first team therefore my fate hung in the tug of war between the two remaining coaches.
My stomach sat in knots for days while I waited for the phone call. I desperately wanted to make a team. I thought it would validate me as some kind of serious athlete if I played year round. When the call finally came my heart was beating a mile a minute…I was told I made the third team.
Clearly my raw talent was not appreciated the way I’d hoped it would be, but the third team was better than the “develop mental” team…it appeared I was making progress.
I nervously walked into the gym that first day and was greeted by my coach, “are you Kathy?”
“Yes”, I said, “I’m Kathy. The player who is too good to be on the third team but would never actually say that to anyone’s face so instead I will smile shyly and nod when cued.”
“Great, why don’t you sit over here…my name is Pat I’ll be coaching you this year and nine years from now you will convince me to marry you on the island of my hometown in Hawaii and we will have three children together. Welcome to my life.”
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