22 to 28: My story to 49

 22-28

A couple of weeks ago I woke up realizing I was turning 49 in less than a month. No, I am not worried about getting older, I was pumped because I was turning 49 and how cool it was to be a prime number. Oops, about three seconds later I realized that 49 is not a prime number and that neat phenomena wasn’t going to happen until I turn 53. However, the fact that 49 can be divided equally into 7 equal parts of 7 led me to realize that, with some minor overlap, my life has really worked well in the 7-year increments. So, to appease my own curiosity and to cathartically get it out, I decided to write about each of my 7-year segments leading up to turning 49.

“Home again” was a phrase that got used a lot during my earlier years.  Now with a daughter who traveled with her horses and me who started racing hare scrambles later in life, that phrase has come around again.  We just got home from the last FTR race for this season.  The trailer is empty, the bike is clean, and so is the nasty gear.  Dinner has been prepared so now it is time to recount another seven years.  Tonight, I jump into seven years that led to changes that are still in effect with my life these days.

 I graduated from Webber at 21 but within two weeks turned 22.  After graduation it was intended for me to head straight to Germany to play the summer German team tennis league and to try my hand at the European pro scene.  However, my sister Michelle was scheduled to graduate from Winter Haven High School and the family thought it was important for me to stay and watch her graduate.  After much fussing, I stayed and watched as she was honored.  This trip was a great honor for me.  I was the first person in my family to travel across the pond, and to get to play tennis while seeing the sights was an awesome bonus.  Remember this was 1994 so communication was not the easiest.  I had a long-time girlfriend who was at home but letting her know how things were going was not a common experience.  While there, I learned how difficult it is for the international students.  My great-grandmother passed away, we were close, and I could do nothing but mourn her privately.  The trip was awesome, I saw some amazing things, and then it was time to come home. 

 In one of the previous posts, I mentioned that I really did not have preparations for my career after college.  That is not completely true.  One of my mentors, Dean Kendall, who had kind of taken me under his wing at 15, well he still helps me out today, was/is a successful stockbroker, annuities broker, and business guru had offered me the opportunity to learn his trade.  Me being me knew better and headed to Europe.  Well, opportunity lost is a great life lesson.  When I came back from Europe, I really had nothing.  I tried my luck with tennis stateside, I worked about five jobs at Webber, heck, I even drove forklift and packed trucks for a mailbox manufacturing company.  Life was beating me up and I was having a blast.  I pissed away money, had no direction, and appeared to be enjoying my mediocrity.  I worked as an assistant tennis professional at the Lakeland Yacht Club, thanks to Robert Hollis, one of my original tennis coaches, and my best friend Blake, who had plenty of direction, let me rent a room from him in the new house that he had purchased.  Remember, I told you he was a worker.

 Relationships came and they also went.  From 23 to 26 life was just a shit show for me.  Bouncing from jobs with no direction at all.  When I turned 26 life was at a tipping point.  Jimbo and I were partying, I was working at Webber in multiple part-time jobs, and we were having fun like you see in those crazy teenage or youth gone wild movies.  Complete debauchery.  Although, even with all that craziness I was a witness, also assistant coach, to complete greatness by the Webber tennis program, led by my dad.  Man, Webber was fun.  It was a work hard, party hard place.  Here is where the balance of life took a shift.  There was this golf tournament hosted by Webber and it was a party at the course.  It turned into a party on the way from the course, and that continued at the meal back at Webber.  As I returned to my condo I remember coming in the door, before dark, and then I remember 3am.  You see, I did not know when to stop.  The kids use a phrase, “Black out drunk”, and I had that mastered long before the phrase became vogue.  When I came to, I was wrapped in a blanket, have no idea where it came from, and was covered in vomit.  To say that I was scared to death was almost a true phrase.  I was so petrified that I ended up washing and drying the blanket and taking a shower before I went to bed properly. 

Another amazing thing that happened in that year was my dad’s 50^th birthday party.  You see, he was turning 50 and we were having a huge bash for him.  That led me to want to get him a really cool gift.  Ironically, little Babson Park had an antique store owned by Erin McCallister and managed by her young granddaughter, Michelle Welch.  As I perused the Knotty Boys collection I just had to ask, “Hey you want to go out some time?”  Her response would put me on pins and needles for months to come.  “Well, I’m only 17 so let me ask my mom and dad.”  What, at this point I was 26 and I am infatuated with a 17-year-old.  I advised her not to worry about it, but I would love to take her out once she turned 18.  Well, one thing led to another and finally in September we went on that first date.  On the third date, the same night as the party, I asked her a question, well maybe made a statement, that changed both our courses.  We stole away a couple of moments and I looked her in the eyes and said, “I don’t want to play any games, if you want to date me, then I’m in.”  I am probably adlibbing that a bit, but the point was, this kid, who was way more mature than me and the eight years I had on her, was forced to make a life altering decision.  She should have been having the time of her life in college far away from home but instead I was asking her to become my girlfriend. 

Amazingly, her parents accepted me, my advanced age, and my lack of direction the best way parents can when their only child brings home a scruffy puppy.  We dated, I still floated about the career/job spectrum and the dating turned into real love.  Her dad, seeing the relationship put down some roots, helped me gain some direction.  One evening he told me that if I was going to be able to take care of his daughter the way that she deserved, I should probably get started on a career.  It is weird how things happen.  I was working at Webber but at the end of the semester a lot of my jobs were removed, repositioned, or simply taken away.  Ouch to the pocketbook.  Enter the wonderful world of GEICO.  It was a great job, I did not hate it, it was real with potential, but I did hate the constraints.  However, it allowed me to prove that I was willing to be serious because, sometimes a bit of sacrifice is worth it when you really want something so precious.  Oh yeah, of course there were jokes, snide comments, and sneers that I was dating someone so young.  It is funny, we really do not get those now, 21 years later. 

With a new relationship, a new career, and really no idea what I wanted to do, Michelle and I dated like couples do.  She was going to college and working at the courthouse and I was working at GEICO.  She would sneak over to my office to eat lunch with me, or I would sneak over to USF/Lakeland to have a car picnic with her.  To this day, we still have some of our best conversations while eating a meal in our “car picnics”.  I took her to her first NASCAR race, sportscar race, and her family took me to my first ever World Series game.  We had holidays together, meals together, and by ’99 kind of thought that this might be it for each of us.  With the help of my mom, I chose the best ring I could get, got the gumption up to ask her dad for his 19-year-old, most important thing in the world to him, only daughter’s hand in marriage.  He had some really strict rules, that to this day I have honored and will continue to honor, and most importantly, he gave me permission.  On December 19, 1999 I took Michelle over to their family’s lake house, got down on one knee at the front porch, and asked her to marry me.  I actually did not hear her answer because an airboat went by right after I asked. 

 Wow, this is for real.  We were going to get married in August of 2000, but I cannot discuss that tonight because I would be 29 at that point.  The excitement was real, the journey had just begun, and for a guy who never wanted to get married, it is funny how life changes.  I guess the next seven years started with some excitement.