path: root/memos/WM-018.txt

Document: WM-018                                                 P. Webb
Category: Life                                                2017.10.29

                           How I met my wife

Abstract

   Somehow, I got lucky

Body

   I was your typical (angsty) teenager. Like most people, I was trying
   to find my voice, trying to find what made me unique, and how I could
   use that to become popular…needless to say I failed. Once, *for some
   reason*, I decided to ask one of the most popular girls in school on
   a date, instead of *my actual crush* (who was friends with her).
   That's a dumb story for another day.

   1. Classface

      In 2002, 14 was my age when a friend of mine called (remember when
      this happened?) to pester me about joining an "exciting" new
      social network called, *Classface*. I'll paraphrase the
      conversation here:

      Cleo: OMG Paul, you need to join this site. It's hella dope.

      Me:   *Uh-huh*. What site?

      Cleo: It's called Classface and--

      Me:   (mumbling) That sounds dumb.

      Cleo: --you get to meet people from around the *world*!

      Me:   I don't even like people *near* me, why the hell would I
            like people *far away*?

      Cleo: JUST JOIN IT NIGGA.

      With a heavy sigh I typed www.classface.com[1] into Internet
      Explorer (yes, seriously) and was greeted with basic, sparse web
      design reminiscent of the era.

      📸[In due time, I would love seeing this everyday][IMG1]

      Back then, no one thought about the need for private profiles.
      After all, wouldn't you *want* people to find you? I spent a
      couple minutes looking at random profiles until I saw a face that
      took me aback. Here was this girl from Phenix City, Alabama (what
      the hell is "Phenix", I thought at the time, shouldn't it be
      "Phoenix"?) and she had such a genuinely happy smile. "Keisha
      Page", I thought to myself, "I like that name". She was *fiiiiine*
      as hell too! I hovered over whatever button to get to the next
      random profile while having an internal discussion with myself.

      Lame Voice:   Wowee, who the hell is THAT?

      Cooler Voice: Your future girl bro!

      Lame Voice:   Nah, that'd never happen.

      Cooler Voice: Not with that attitude! Just say hi.

      Lame Voice:   Really? No way man, I'm nervous.

      Cooler Voice: You can't be a bitch *all* your life. You can't even
                    tell Shawna you like her, you can at least tell a
                    girl who lives THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY that she
                    looks cute. She realize you a scrub? Delete
                    your account!

      And so, that's what I did! I scoured her profile for an opener and
      saw that she was a fan of Degrassi (the Drake era). I believe I
      wrote something along the lines of:

      > Hey, I just joined this site and I just happened to find your
      > page. I wanted to let you know that you have a pretty smile
      > anyhoo did you see what Skinner did to Marco last week? What a
      > bum, yeah, Jimmy should've said something to him.

      (For those who don't know, Drake's character was named Jimmy on
      the show.)

      I anxiously awaited her reply and probably played Road Rash on a
      Shockwave site to pass the time. To my delight, she thanked me and
      our friendship flourished thanks to our shared interests. I'd like
      to take a timeout to publicly thank Drake[2], Andrea Lewis[3] (my
      favorite person on the show), and everyone else from Degrassi for
      making this possible.

      Classface eventually became a lame place to be and it was their
      fault. They had the *terrible* idea to redesign the site but with
      no UX sense. No one knew where to go to do things you could do in
      the original version and I believe they messed the site up *more*
      trying to fix it. So, everyone moved to Myspace.

   2. Myspace

      It was during this time that Keisha gave me her phone number
      (holla!) and I heard her Southern accent for the first time and we
      would talk for *hours* about how wack our parents were, dreams for
      the future, and everything in-between.

      Years later, I would reminisce about those conversations and
      create music. Here's a sampling of those tracks:

      [4][5]

      *Dusty Stars* is from Music from the Love Lounge, Vol. 01[6] (this
      cuts off early for some reason, probably data corruption) and
      *Remember When* is from Vol. 02[7]. I sometimes find music a
      better conduit to express my thoughts than simply talking.

      Keisha and I got busy with our own lives and communicated less but
      I would check her profile every couple months to see what was new.
      At some point, I saw she was in a relationship with a guy I
      instantly disliked and partly because I was being a hater. From
      where I sat, thousands of miles away, it seemed like he wasn't
      treating her right and her journal posts confirmed my suspicions.
      When she uploaded a picture of herself with a baby on a beach, my
      unspoken hopes were smashed.

      Welp.

   3. Facebook

      Like with Classface, Myspace became lame and so everyone jumped to
      Facebook. Keisha and I continued our random check-ins over the
      years but it wasn't until October 2011 that we reconnected. Her
      marriage to that *terrible* guy was over for quite some time but I
      was just happy to converse as a friend.

      The following month, we became closer than I ever expected (or
      hoped) and I had the bright idea to try and visit her for
      Thanksgiving. She thought it was a fantastic idea so I begged my
      mom to buy me roundtrip tickets to Jacksonville, FL…my mom is a
      bit paranoid. Catfishing, abduction, and other crazy things happen
      all the time so she wasn't super keen about the idea at first. She
      made me promise to text her as soon as I landed (I forgot to do so
      until the next morning and got a rather disgruntled phone call,
      haha). Keisha and I were using Skype at this point and I was one
      *thousand* per cent sure she was real. 😏

   4. Florida

      📸[Me, after realizing what I got myself into][IMG2]
      📸[(Kinda) high-school sweethearts][IMG3]

      When Keisha greeted me at the airport, it was surreal. We both had
      goofy grins on our faces and then hugged. Our immediate,
      simultaneous remarks were: "OMG you're so tall/short!". LOL

      Luckily, her siblings and daughter liked me and we had a fun week
      full of jokes (you gotta come prepared with some zingers 'round
      these folks), fun, and of course…Thanksgiving. 😉

      In fact, it was Thanksgiving Day that I asked/confirmed our
      relationship status. *Pro tip:* if you're forgetful of dates like
      I am, make sure anniversaries are on a date you *know* you won't
      forget. BWAHAHAHA!

      Y'know those movies where a main character departs for a flight
      and the other main character is super sad with tears in their eyes
      but the first character wants to be strong for the second and
      tries really hard to keep it together? Yeah, that was us when it
      was time for me to head back to Boston. As soon as I turned away
      from Keisha and entered the airport, I was
      boo-hoo-Academy-Award-winning-actor-Viola-Davis crying. My. Tears.
      Were. *Fugly*. I looked like my mom AND dad took turns beating my
      ass for stealing cookies and smudging a wall they just painted
      after mooning the elderly Polish woman next door. It was bad man.
      My chest hurt.

      Some of my friends at the time thought I was crazy to date someone
      on the other side of the country, and for a couple years at that!
      Keisha and I would visit each other at least twice a year for
      physical reminders of why we were together and spoke/texted nearly
      every day and that nourished our emotional *and* mental needs.

   5. Massachusetts

      With our generation, I've seen and continue to see posts on social
      media where people are hella frustrated about relations̶h̶i̶p̶shits
      they get into. The ratio of disappointment appears to be balanced.
      I believe 90% of issues could be solved with communication. Notice
      I didn't prefix the word "more". I don't think people communicate
      at *all* anymore. Millenials would rather swipe left/right and
      take pics or make statuses for likes that don't matter instead of
      communicating for love that *does* matter…ooh, that'd make a great
      post in of itself.

      Even though Keisha and I knew each other for 10 years, we still
      had to learn *how* to live together. I was a guy in a two-bedroom
      apartment with a long-distance girlfriend and when she moved in, I
      suddenly had a three-year-old stepdaughter and couldn't fucking
      swear all the time. And furniture. Oh my *gawd*, Keisha had so
      much furniture. I had a desk…and a sad excuse for a bed. During
      Keisha's first night living in Massachusetts, a speeding driver
      knocked off the sideview mirror from her parked car (*pro tip:*
      don't live on Main Street, side streets are better).

      I found that (gasp) Keisha could irritate me sometimes! I
      irritated her *all* the time! There was a period in the first year
      where everything could've gone up in smoke but we *communicated*.
      My default way of dealing with things at the time was to shut down
      and stew, have mock debates in my head. Little did I know, Keisha
      does that on a regular basis and always had an immediate response
      to everything I could possibly say. Hoo boy, I'm a pro now but
      that was not a fun time.

      Compromise was something else I had to learn. I was resistant at
      first but when faced with the prospect of losing her and an
      adorable little girl who now saw me as "daddy" instead of "Paul",
      I quickly learned to adjust. I'm not a perfect guy today, but I am
      perfect for my family (or damn close to it). Don't hashtag,
      retweet, or share "relationship goals"…just learn how to
      compromise, communicate, and ensure your partner is on the same
      page. Remember when your parents made you eat nasty things with
      dinner? I would mix the nasty things with food I did like to get
      them out the way so I could enjoy the rest of my meal. The same
      thing applies to relationships; do the hard stuff now so you can
      enjoy growing together later.

   6. The Future

      I proposed to Keisha on Easter, earlier this year. Remember my pro
      tip from earlier? BWAHAHAHA!

      📸[Please ignore the fact that all of us are looking at ourselves and not the camera][IMG4]

      And now? We're married! As far as what's next…growth. Our focus is
      creating an environment where our kids are nurtured, growing, and
      happy. That means becoming homeowners so we REALLY own our own
      space, and helping each other thrive in our fields.

      Keisha went from being a sailor in the Navy, waking up at the
      bootycrack of dawn to work out, have 24-hour shifts for some thing
      or other (idk, I'm a civilian) to becoming a stay-at-home-mom
      because we don't trust anyone with our toddler until he learns how
      to speak. We've been spooked by online videos of "caretakers"
      smacking babies in the face and parents wondering why their child
      has a fear of pillows. NOPE. 🖕🏾

      Since our son's been born, Keisha has garnered a reputation in mom
      groups as THE go-to person when you want a custom designed shirt,
      poofy skirts, onesies, booties, and so on. I've designed logos for
      her and provided my designer-y expertise on how to deal with
      clients and she's flourishing!

      I'm a simple man, I just want world domination.

      It's amazing that two 14-year-old kids would connect on social
      media in 2002, only to marry each other 15 years later. Paul Webb
      and Lakeisha Page met online…Webb and Page met on a webpage.
      WebbPage. See? That's some high-quality movie shit. 🕸

   Extra

      This may sound completely fabricated to you, dear reader, but
      Keisha and I lived in the *same* city and our fathers were
      stationed at the *same* military base at the *same* time.
      Clarksville, Tennessee was the city, Fort Campbell was the
      military base, 1994-1997 was the time. Fort Campbell had "family
      days" and there would be lots of kids playing together. I don't
      remember any of the kids I saw/played with but it's quite possible
      that we've seen each other back then.

      How weird is that?

   P.S.

      During one of Keisha's early visits to Massachusetts, I asked her
      to appear on that year's release of Music from the Love Lounge.
      It's a fitting end to a post like this, check it out (beats by
      me)! 🕸

      [8]

   P.P.S

      Here's my wife's post[9] about how we met! Did you know that she
      found her dress at a thrift store and *completely* redesigned it?
      She's craftier than a mofo!

   P.P.P.S

      📸[I gotta say, we look DAYUM good][IMG5]

References

   [1]    <http://web.archive.org/web/20050830203010/http://www.classface.com:80>
   [2]    <https://twitter.com/drake>
   [3]    <https://twitter.com/missandrealewis>
   [4]    <https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=512177084/size=small/bgcol=010000/linkcol=c8af60/track=3614882051/transparent=true>
   [5]    <https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=955213907/size=small/bgcol=010000/linkcol=c8af60/track=918133906/transparent=true>
   [6]    <https://wibby.bandcamp.com/album/music-from-the-love-lounge-vol-01>
   [7]    <https://wibby.bandcamp.com/album/music-from-the-love-lounge-vol-02>
   [8]    <https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=4219807572/size=small/bgcol=010000/linkcol=c8af60/track=635396433/transparent=true>
   [9]    <http://sincerelyshantelle.com/blog/how-i-met-my-husband>
   [IMG1] <https://🔥.pixels.wtf/blog/image/2017/how-i-met-my-wife-a.png>
   [IMG2] <https://🔥.pixels.wtf/blog/image/2017/how-i-met-my-wife-b.jpg>
   [IMG3] <https://🔥.pixels.wtf/blog/image/2017/how-i-met-my-wife-c.jpg>
   [IMG4] <https://🔥.pixels.wtf/blog/image/2017/how-i-met-my-wife-d.jpg>
   [IMG5] <https://🔥.pixels.wtf/blog/image/2017/how-i-met-my-wife-e.jpg>