When did you realize ...

When did you realize .. you were in love? Age had caught up with you? Had a great job? Made a terrible mistake? Needed a change? Had the best day of your life?

I realized old(er) age got me a few years ago, playing basketball with my kids. Since I was 15 I could grab the rim of a 10-foot hoop. Never could dunk (curse of a 5-9 white kid).
With the kids, I jumped to grab the rim and came up about eight inches short. Granted, I had put on a few pounds, but damn ...

 

* I knew I was in love the night I met my current wife.
We met in a parking lot because she was too shy to go into Applebee's.
We pretty much fell in love immediately.
After 22 1/2 years in a loveless marriage, I finally knew real love.

* I still haven't had a great job.
My first gig, 18 months after graduating college and at 34 years old, was the best newspaper job I've had, but the pay was lousy.
Readers treated me the best -- by far.

* Knew I made a terrible mistake about a month after my first wedding, when the abuse began.

* I still need a change, at least on the job front.

* Best days of my life were the days my two kids were born, and college graduation, because of my family upbringing.
Those are gimmes, though, so the best day was about 10 years ago.
Went to a Royals doubleheader at Kauffman. Was the first to catch a foul ball and won a $100 gift card. And they got 12 hits, so we got a free dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
And Mike Sweeney had a straight steal of home, which some card company memoralized on one of those Flip books.

 

Love: The first time I kissed her

Age: One time when I threw my back out.

Job: My favorite one was when I was a one-man sports staff. Had a lot of fun. Also didn't have kids at the time and my future wife and I were living together and being the happiest young couple on earth. We're both still nostalgic for those days in Podunk. Would not have been able to handle the job with kids.

Mistake: When the cop dumped out my beer.

Change: My career needs one now.

Best day of my life: There was a thread on this a while back, with the caveat that it couldn't be wedding, kids-born, that sort of thing. It was a day in my senior year of high school where I kicked ass in gym class against the jocks in basketball, got two A's on tests, found out I had a huge part in the senior play, got my first college acceptance letter (turned out, only one of two), and went to a great NBA game with my dad in which we saw the Showtime Lakers.

 

When we watched I, Claudius on videocassette over a bottle of wine.

 

You don't have answer all the questions. Those were just suggestions/examples.

 

Love: when I received a BJ on the second date.

 

I knew I was in love when she told me (on the 1st date) her favorite album at the time was the same Van Morrison album I was enjoying; I proposed a week later and its now 18 yrs later (17 of marriage);

I knew I was old when I ruptured my achilles (at 33) and could never get above the rim again (I used to dunk a volleyball);

I knew I had made a terrible mistake when my ex-gf wanted to rekindle the magic and when we got back to my place I realized I did not want to have intimate relations and did not want her in my bed and I told her to sleep on the floor.

I had the best days of my life when my two boys were born.

 

It wasn't The Job, but at the time I knew the profession was my calling.

I was at the first paper in Long Beach, 19, doing the preps thing, taking calls and covering games, and other grunt work that no one else in the toy department wanted to do, which allowed me to be in the toy department every day, among the best collection of writers, editors and rimmers in the business.

NFL playoffs roll around in '90. Bengals at Raiders. They needed someone to run film back from the Coliseum and I offered because it meant I could watch the game from the press box for the first half. Then at halftime I'd go find our photographer on the sideline to retrieve film and hurry the rolls back to Long Beach. For whatever reason the photog told me to hang around a few minutes into the 3rd quarter, so I saw Bo's injury at field level. Trainers helped him off the field not too far from where I was standing and I could see Bo's eyes and the way he was wincing. Who knew that 34-yard run would be his last play ever.

But it's what happened during the play that consumed me for life. The Coliseum is packed and unleashes a colossal roar during Bo's run, and the sound those 90,000 screamers made reverberated right through my body. I came to understand the rush athletes get playing in front of such a crowd every week.

That was the first moment I realized how much I'd love being in the newspaper business.

The second was the day Ricky Carrigan took the baton on the anchor leg of the 4x100 at the California State Championships at Cerritos College.

 

I knew I was in love on our second date when we spent an hour in her car after a night out with friends and we talked like we had been best friends for years. That was 16 years ago Oct 6.

I knew I was old when I was leading a fast break and made what I assumed was a perfect bounce pass for a layup and a kid came from nowhere and easily stole the ball and went coast to coast for a basket. A couple plays later the same thing happened only it was another kid. I was 40 and both kids went on to play pro ball, one in the NBA for 5 years and one in a top Euro league going on 10 years. But the year before when they were seniors in high school I could get anywhere I wanted on them and score or make a positive play whenever I needed to. That was when I became a spot up shooter and a couple years later I hurt my knee and I gave up hoops. Fuck I miss playing hoops.

 

With my wife, it was pretty instant. She was so laid back and cool that I felt like the first three months I was waiting for her to go nuts.

There was one night, we'd been dating for less than a month and we were going to get dinner on a Tuesday night. I was picking her up at 6. In theory, it was my only true day off of the week. I would have to work, but there was no availability and one of the other guys was on-call in case something happened. Well, two big things happened and I found out at about 4:30 that I had to chase a story. I called her at 5:30 and told her it would probably have to be 7 and then at 6:30, I called her to tell her it would probably be between 8:30 and 9. She said, "Just call me when you leave the stadium." I called her at 8:15 and got to her house 20 minutes later and she had a NY strip and risotto dinner waiting.

She also secured impossible-to-get college football tickets for a game that I was dying to go to. During my time as a reporter, I can think of two times when I wanted tickets to an event that I couldn't get. This was the second time.

She got the tickets. Crazy good seats. Her boss had season tickets to the local NFL, NBA, MLB and two local college teams and would routinely give them to employees. Everybody on staff wanted these and they were told to come into his office and state their case. She went in and said, "I've worked here eight years and I've never once asked for tickets. Nobody else here can say the same thing." and she walked out of his office with the tickets in hand.

Had a great job? I've liked most of the jobs I've had in and out of journalism. The only real time I've been really unhappy in a job was when I knew layoffs were looming and there was nothing I could do about it.

I had dated so many women where my schedule was a big issue. Dating someone who could roll with me traveling and never made me feel guilty about it was huge. I also started to notice that for the first time in my career, I would be really bummed when I would have to travel for work.

Felt old: When I was 27, I went in for my physical and my doctor said, "So does your hair loss concern you?" Honestly, it had never crossed my mind and I spent the next week standing in front of the mirror pulling my hair back and being aware of my hairline.

The big thing for me was when I went from being an XL to a XXL. I was in a car accident when I was 28 and hurt my back. I had to have two surgeries to fix it. I can't run like I used to. I used to run 2-3 miles 4-5 times a week and it kept my weight in the 220-230 range, which may sound high, but I'm almost 6-3 and at that weight, I had something resembling a 6-pack. Since I can't run or use the elliptical without my back hurting, my weight gradually came up and now I struggle to stay in the 250 range. It makes things tough and I feel like I can't control it like I used to.

 

That made me LOL.

 

I know everyone talks about feeling physically old, but the first time I felt old was when I began law school as a non-traditional, returning student in a full-time program on a Big Ten campus. I went to a house party the first few days, just to try to meet people, and I felt a little out of place. I also felt a little out of place the first day of class, when everyone else whipped out their laptops to take notes on, and I hadn't even considered the possibility. I had my notebook and that was it.

Anyway, a few months into the year, someone started spreading some meme of the time with a bunch of cartoonish characters titled something like, "The people in your law school class." It was good-natured, and there was one for things like, "The bookwork," or, "The quiet one," or "The best-dressed one," and so on and so forth.

Anyway, one of them was, "The one I only talked to one time," or something like that. And a woman had tagged me. I felt this low-level anguish seeing it, because I had been deluding myself with this notion that I was fitting in just fine - I felt like I knew this woman and was friendly with her. I knew then that I was the elderly outcast of the class. It's not that they thought badly of me. It's just that they didn't think of me at all. It's something that I continue to battle with, and something that everyone preparing for a career change where you may be the oldest among your new peers should think about.

Anyway, I'm in my late 30s, but I haven't felt old physically yet at all. I'm sure it's coming, but it hasn't yet. I keep myself in good shape, though that's not fool proof, I know. It'll catch up eventually.