Have you ever watched a parade and hoped it would rain? Have you ever been to the circus and waited with anticipation for a tightrope walker to fall? I am starting to think that a lot more people than I thought have. A few more people than I expected have asked me if my proposal yesterday to Teri was too early or was the right thing to do. I was even grilled by one person to make sure I was making the right decision. Twenty questions later he gave me his blessing. I don’t need someone else’s blessing to decide whether or not I want to tell someone I love them so much that I want to spend the rest of my life with them. I make the decision about the person I want to face the troubles, enjoy the happiness, work through the loss, and forge the rest of my life with. I know that quite a few people just simply worry because we live in a world where relationships and marriages end without any provocation or warning (and I myself am proof of that).

However, what it comes down to is that when I talk to Teri, she is my equal and I am her equal. We have a mutual respect and admiration for each other. She is my friend and she is my partner. I don’t have some kind of dreamy vision of her, I see her as an intelligent, beautiful, responsible, generous, devoted, and loving woman, and though I see all that I can still see the things that make her Teri, the dark sides as well as the light.

For those of you who are unaware I enjoy assessing people for what they are made of. Learning the deeper complexities of people makes me feel excited. I am very aware of Teri’s faults and the things which will add a layer of complexity to our life together; however there is not a moment that I feel as though these faults are any different than my own. Though they are unique in what they are they are still a subject which the two of us discuss and continue to find balance for.

Commitment is about telling another person that they are everything you have been searching for, and that you accept them as who they are and are willing to be there for them always. I go into this with no false visions of what will happen or how difficult this will be. Marriage is hard work, determination, and faith. I have no doubts about the way I feel about Teri and I look forward to facing the days ahead with her.

As many of you know, there is very little about the Christmas Holiday which I enjoy. Usually, during this holiday I am either short on money, time, or good cheer. By the last week prior to Christmas, my stress levels have me passed the point I can breathe. Last year this was caused when I not only got my check two and a half weeks late, but also did not get my usual Christmas bonus. The year before that Rebecca had lost her job and Christmas would mostly be about preparing to buffer ourselves against the problems to come.

When the month began I had already been handed a bit more than I could handle. Wally decided that he could no longer work at the store because he was looking for more work and didn’t feel he could keep up the responsibility. This wasn’t a huge problem, however, since I had been handling the FNMs prior to that with little trouble, the additional Friday gave me time to be able to get some side responsibilities done, however and would allow me additional shopping time this year.

In addition, the two weeks prior to Thanksgiving I floated the store a loan which I was sure would have paid off by now. However, due to the random decrease in player attendance at both the FNMs and the Drafts, income tanked during the month of November and I am still sitting on $800 which will end up being paid back to me in slow installments.

During the last week of the month, I was notified by Rebecca that the custody agreement, which I thought was going to be sufficient, was not usable and would have to be amended. This meant that I would not be allowed to see my daughter for at least another month, and it was especially painful because of the time of year, and my family’s desire to see her again.

However, Teri has been amazingly supportive during this time. It’s a little tougher for her and I really appreciate the attempts she has been making. I feel awful because I know what a mess I become this time of year and the fact that she understands is help on it’s own.

I have new plans for the store next year and so far they seem to be fairly awesome. Tom is going to come on in a more Partner style position and I am still in the market for a few others. I am currently watching one of my clients deal with a nightmare situation and I don’t want to end up there myself.

So where am I going with all this?

Mostly I am just passing out status updates to the world and explaining why the great deal of silence lately. Although it’s not completely responsible I was trying to enjoy as much of my time in November as I could.

To anyone which may feel like I have been ignoring them or not communicating with them as much, I apologize and to those of you who feel I was rude or insincere, I apologize.

I hope you are reading this at a more reasonable time than I am writing it. Tonight I accomplished a lot, and yet, it still isn’t enough to help me sleep. I’m currently going through a phase which is common and I know will pass, but it is going to make the next few days difficult to deal with.

On a semi-related yet not closely related note, I think I might be going crazy, but definitely the good kind. As I have mentioned before, I have been spending a great deal of time with Teri, and as I have said I have felt pretty good about doing so. It has caused me to not be at the store as much as usual, but I feel that the time I have invested has been worth every moment. Before you think that this means I am crazy about Teri, stop. Teri is one thing I am very serious about, she’s not perfect and that’s one of the best things about her. I would never call what I feel about Teri crazy. I am going crazy because I feel happy and I am beginning to feel like that might be ok.

My whole life has been a constant struggle of fighting with being unhappy, becoming happy, and then having my happiness stripped away. Usually, the happiness I obtain is from compromising with me and accepting what I have as good. This time I went from an unhappy period straight to feeling like I just won some kind of super lottery drawing. I have a beautiful daughter who I will get the opportunity to start spending time with once some paperwork is solidified, the most awesome girlfriend that money couldn’t buy, a supportive friend base (even though sometimes I don’t accept that), and a very solid plan for my future. All of these things just seemed to start falling into place.

Which brings me to why I am terrified and in the state I am in. Life does tend to steal things away from me, and I can feel my subconscious somehow trying to bargain with it. I keep starting to create bad situations for myself. Thankfully nothing has been too dramatic, but I have to keep these under control. Right now, I am very happy with the direction my life is taking me.

To put this very simply, I have been able to spend the last few weeks being able to make someone happy because they are making me happy because I am making them happy, and the same is true for the inverse. I’ve been able to do a lot of things I really enjoy, but never get a chance to enjoy. I’ve also been doing a lot of things I don’t typically enjoy, but the scenario seems to change everything.

Now if only these next few days of over thinking would finally come to an end so I can get my mind back into focus.

Though a great many of you now know I went to Ohio last weekend, not as many of you really understand why. Why would Steve take his girlfriend, who had already purchased a plane ticket to Ohio, by car to the middle of nowhere in Ohio? The answer has a very large quantity of layers. Layers? What the hell do you mean by layers? Is your relationship a complicated cake? Not at all, fictitious person who asks really odd questions. Actually, I am just really complicated and simple simultaneously and for some reason, people don’t take a moment to realize that the complicated parts are very easily understood.

Let’s start with the simplest reason. Teri was a bridesmaid in a wedding in Logan, Ohio. I took Teri to pick up her dress from the tailor. As she opened the curtain and stepped out, I had already decided that I had a very overwhelming desire to watch her take part in this occasion.

Before I continue, I feel I need to elaborate on something. I am not traditionally a fan of going to people’s weddings. I think that there are traditionally two problems with weddings. The first is that they are usually over planned to the point that someone is nervous that something is going to go wrong. The other problem I have is that the little stuff which should be planned for never seems to be and is the thing which is potentially the most disastrous to the person who has over planned. A smaller problem I tend to just pass on is that most men have never once thought about their wedding and usually don’t want to have any part in the wedding itself except for the saying of the words “I Do” and getting the hell out of the building so they can get that “post wedding sex” they have heard so much about. I do, however, love the emotional responses people have to a wedding. I myself, actually find it touching the way that people respond to the people being married. It is one of the few times that emotions are very sincere.

Seeing Teri try to stand calm and composed with a look of happiness and pride was something that, to me, would be a potential asset to be stored away in my memory vaults. Little did I know it would be so much more than I could have imagined. Watching her stand there in that beautiful dress was one of the few things I can say is honestly more captivating than watching the rain pour down on a stormy night. My vantage point was a little less than amazing, but being able to have any vantage point is more than I felt, at that moment, I ever truly deserved.

The more complicated reason, however, is what happened afterward. When we left there Saturday, we headed for her friend Stephanie’s house. The car ride was one of those unexpected treasures you get in life. The drive to her house was worth more money than I will ever be able to obtain, and to call it priceless is to devalue its level of awesomeness. This is not the reason I meant though, part of what I had wanted was to give her a chance to see her friends again. As I have told many people, many times it is important to remember who you are and how you got there. Seeing and appreciating the people who helped you make it through every day and cared about you when you felt alone is something that so many people take for granted. Being able to give Teri the ability to spend even just a few minutes being reminded of the fact that no matter how far you go your friends will always care about you made the trip worth every minute.

Right now, I know my friends are probably feeling like, especially after what I just said, I am trying to move my life in a direction where they are not a part of it. The truth is, I am just taking a little time to indulge myself in something very special. There isn’t very much like Teri that comes along in life, and for a little while I experienced a very strong fear of loss. However, just like my friends, Teri wants to be a part of my life and I find myself proud to have her there, just as I have all of the rest of my friends.

This trip to Ohio was about a lot of things, but most importantly it is about remembering that there are some things far more important than just getting the things done which have to be done. Just because I will always love Teri, doesn’t mean I won’t also always love my friends.

I have done a lot of very strange things in my lifetime. I have also had a very strange relationship with Teri. This two things being solid fact, the next statement I make really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. I just got back from a trip to Ohio, which I had no intention to take on Friday, but took anyway. In fact, Friday at 10PM, I was getting ready to deliver Teri to the spot where she would leave alone for Ohio, ultimately by plane. The decision to go to Ohio was finalized at 12PM on Friday, in a parking lot, after a quick lunch at McDonalds. My thanks go out to Justin and Tom for helping to take care of things during this totally and seemingly irrational decision. I’ll have more details later, but for those of you wondering where I have been, the location was Ohio, and yes, it was totally the right decision.