Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Soulmates?

Is there such a thing? Is there one perfect person out there, meant for each of us?  It's an age-old question that has probably been asked billions of times. If the answer is yes, how do they find one another in a sea of billions of people, bopping around on 92 million square miles of Earth? 

Unfortunately, I don't have the answer.  I can only speak from personal experience.

On the surface, a seemingly coincidental set of circumstances brought us together, but beneath, a complex series of events had to occur to make us a reality. Everything that happened, had to happen exactly the way it did, from the time each of us was born, to the time we met and beyond. 


The Story of Us and a Dash of Serendipity

Let's start at the very beginning. In 1982 I was born at Booth Memorial Hospital in Cleveland. Coincidentally, the next year, my future wife would be born at the very same hospital.
 
When I reached the sixth grade twelve years later, I transferred to a school called St. John's Lutheran  in South Euclid, OH. Before this, I had bounced around to a few different schools trying to find the right fit for my "personality." You see, teachers agitated me due to their unreasonable demands for my ever-wandering attention. Eight hours next to my very best friends and you don't want me to talk them?!?!? Get real, and add my name to the "No Recess" list for the fifth time this week. But I digress.


The morning I walked into the crowded gymnasium at St. John's (where all the students gathered before school began), things felt very different. I soon found that my teachers were different, the vibe of the school was different and these classmates would prove to be friends I'd have for the rest of my life. I could feel it, this was the place I was meant to be.

That very morning, after twelve years of seemingly coincidental and meaningless life events, I walked into a gymnasium, where sat the girl I would marry exactly twenty years later. A tall, skinny fourth grader, with bangs to her eyelids. My fourth elementary school in six years and the boy that couldn't stay in one place for too long decided that he had found his home.


But three years flew by and I hadn't noticed her. I mean, I knew who she was because her sister was in my class the entire time, but her existence was inconsequential to me, as was mine to her.  Now her sister was another matter altogether. I had prepubescent hots for her and somehow convinced her to date me when we graduated from the 8th grade. It was one of those "summer lovin, had me a blast" situations,  though we thankfully never even kissed (no offense Jess). I did have the fortuitous opportunity to meet her family and got to know them a bit. Her father even offered me a Job working for his company, Hodous Construction, making $10/hour. Jess and I broke-up before I ever got to see those riches and we all went our separate ways. I was no longer a part of their extended family and Jennifer wasn't even a thought in my mind.

Over the next few years I'd see them all a few times at a church youth group; really just as a passer-by though. 

Then we lost contact completely.

That is until I ran into her parents, Dave and Pat, at a Lidz in the Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Somehow, we were both on a layover to separate destinations. I really loved North Carolina Hats at the time, so I absolutely had to go in and buy one while I was there. I'm not sure why they were in the store, but they remembered me and we spoke briefly.

Then I was off to Atlanta, where I was moving, without much more than a momentary thought that it was weird to see them in a hat store, in a North Carolina Airport, on a layover. Same layover city, same hat store, same exact moment.

A weird coincidence I guess.


"Even God Himself finds it as difficult an undertaking as the dividing of the Red Sea. Forty days before a child is born its mate is determined upon."
- Genesis Rabba lxviii. 3-4

Lost and Found

I lived in Atlanta for the next three years and never thought of that chance meeting again. I was in school at the Art Institute, on the Dean's List and doing very well. There was no reason to go back home anytime soon. Then one day I got a call from my best friend, Bryan. Apparently one of our other really close friends had been messing around with his girlfriend of five years. So the next day I drove back to Cleveland, navigating twelve hours of road with bad intentions in mind. Luckily flared tempers subsided and the whole situation ended up working out for the best. We are all married and the very best of friends to this day. But after that, I decided to move back home for good. I missed Cleveland and my friends.
 
After a few years,  I eventually moved downtown and began spinning at club called Sinergy. 

That's where I met her...again.

She was a tall, pretty woman, with crazily dyed hair to her shoulders. She had been living in Chicago while I was in Atlanta, but decided to move back home around the same time I did.  We greeted one other, exchanged numbers and that was that. Just an old friend's phone number, set to collect dust in my phone. 

She was right there once again, twelve years later...but my sights were unfortunately focused elsewhere. Luckily, elsewhere would turn out to be a disaster so my focus was ultimately freed.

One day I caught the train home from work, by way of Tower City, and I just happened to walk by the MAC Store. There she was again, she lived at home on the east side, but worked downtown where I lived. I stopped in and spoke to her, told her we should hang out sometime and she agreed.

I eventually worked up the nerve to call her and the rest is history. 

Oh wait, not history. Near tragedy is what I meant to say.

The Big Break 

We began to date and after a few months I broke up with her. After 25 years of maneuvering through intricate mazes that led me directly to my soulmate, I let her go. 

I didn't get it. 

I didn't understand that she was the perfect person for me. The only girl that would ever exist that was custom-made to deal with me, my imperfections, my shortcomings, my life of hundreds of unrealized dreams and long list of failures. It takes a person especially made for you to pick you up when you are down and make you a better person everyday.  To see through the bad and love you no matter what. 

Luckily, she never did stop loving me. Even after I had broken her heart.

In the romantic comedy that is my life, the formula held true to form: "Boy gets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy wins girl back."

So, exactly twenty years after I walked into that gymnasium and was graced by the presence of Ms. Jennifer Hodous, I was "lucky" enough to make it back to her and make her Mrs. Jennifer Ford.

Needless to say, I will never be without my soulmate again.


4 comments:

  1. Omg . so sweet . where are the tissues

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  2. I loved reading your blog. And as the "other" mother of Jess, I welcome you to my son's extended family. Can I do that? I sure hope so. What a wonderfully awesome story. Chance? I think not.

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  3. Ok.... I have finally stopped crying. Mrs. Jennifer Ford, my new daughter, I thank you for making my son so happy. You are a wonderful addition to the family. Darnell, thank you for sharing your story! Mom.

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  4. I love reading your blog, you are both a beautiful couple.

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