An Innocent Beginning

It all started innocent enough. I was the coach of her softball team.

One night at a league softball meeting, the president made mention that she needed a coach for her slow pitch team. In a drunken stupor I jumped to my feet and announced to the three war hero’s sitting at the bar of the American Legion Hall, that I would be more then willing to guide a group of young women into the world of softball immortality. With the help of my buddy Bob, we would turn these ladies into softball savants. What I really wanted to do was scope out the chicks.

At the beginning of the first practice illusion of grandeur were quickly quelled by the married-with-children players and smattering of single female players. Now I have no problems with most sects of the population but my disappointment must have been evident by the look on my downtrodden face. The only single women on the team were dating each other. A perverse instance of cock blocking that shattered my spirits. That is until she arrived.

She had legs from her butt to the ground and seemed to float as she walked across the clay covered infield. With every elegant step she took, expectations rose, as well as other things, in anticipation of our first meeting. As we finished this initial conversation of our lives, a realization that she was the one manifested itself into my being.

Being “the one” at that time didn’t mean anything more then being the mark. We did have a lot in common and only lived a couple blocks apart in the ultra modern part of Aurora’s East side. You know the edge of crap. Anyway, I figured a few months of fun in the sun before we traveled our separate roads through life.

As the season crept by with new and exciting face coming into and out of the picture, I realized that I actually cared for her. Not the care you feel for the elderly neighbor or a long time friend. It was mind-boggling, my life will end if I loose her type of caring. The kind that every man hopes to avoid and yet is always looking to find type of caring. The deep down in your soul kind of caring that becomes love.

Through the almost fifteen years that have transpired since our first fateful meeting we have endured trials and tribulations that seek to drive a spike between the affection we have for each other. Complacency, self-righteousness, as well as ignorance are always lurking around the corner waiting to rear its ugly head. The ability to communicate, which was developed during the infancy of our relationship, is the only thing that keeps our bonds of matrimony intact. These bonds, though stretched can only be held together with the glue of truth, even when the truth hurts.