An Oaf’s Part in Perfection

Happy birthday, Mom. And happy birthday to my girls. I wrote this post back in August of 2006. Won awards and shit, which was nice (and surprising). Seems appropriate to rerun it today, on the 23rd anniversary of the day I felt life was worth living for maybe the very first time.

- Karl

—

I’m in a weird place at the moment. Effects from my California trip are still coursing through me. I’m really not happy with where I’m at in my life. Not happy with a lot of choices I’ve made (and continue to make). Not happy that I live in a little tiny town, have been here for nearly three years, and still know virtually no one.

I need to DO something. Quit letting fear rule my freaking life. Get a plan. Make lists. Put my ass in motion. Ugh. Ugh.

Right. So there’s that. Strange, I don’t typically get into the deeper shit here on 2HT. The crap I could lay down here is legion. I should probably start relying on my other more personal blog again. Or maybe this space is changing…evolving. Perish the thought.

As per Angela’s Inner Babs, today I’m going to write about one of the perfect days in my life.

I got married very young. I’d turned 20 only a month before, in fact. And though my wife and I were already very much in love and would likely have married, anyway, things were accelerated when we discovered she was pregnant. With twins.

Before that revelation came to be, we’d both decided we were joining the Air Force. But Uncle Sam doesn’t allow for pregnant women to join the Air Force. Imagine that. So we decided that I would join alone. Me, the wild and crazy kid with the long-ass tri-colored mullet, dangly earring, and Miami Vice wardrobe. In the military. Money was too tight to mention (as Simply Red sang) so it would be perfect. Uncle Sam would pay for the certainly HUGE medical bills related to my wife’s pregnancy. No way could we have afforded it otherwise, even if I continued as a civilian with the three jobs I had.

So I took the battery of tests and joined the Air Force with a “guaranteed” job, meaning I could pick any five jobs I wanted and be guaranteed one of those five. The fighter pilot option was out since I’d be enlisted. (Not to mention I don’t have perfect vision.) I chose the five jobs that had the longest training schools, thinking that those would be the most difficult and valuable, and thus the highest paying jobs once I returned to the civilian sector.

Blah, blah, blah. That’s not really important.

I went through basic training, missing my wife like hell the entire time. When I graduated, I went to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi to begin training as an Air Traffic Control Radar Equipment Specialist. In other words, a radar repairman.

For the first two months of tech school, you weren’t allowed to have your spouse and family join you. I guess it’s an adjustment period of sorts. It sucked. I missed her so badly I physically ached at times. And I felt so out of place because I was generally two years older than everyone else, and that made me feel even worse.

I missed my daughters’ birth. I fucking hate that I did, but it was the choice my wife and I made at the time because of my Air Force training. If I’d gone home for the birth, my training would be delayed and then it’d be even longer before I could bring them to Mississippi. I still remember well the Master Sergeant from my squadron knocking on my dorm room door – me in a t-shirt and skivvies – to tell me that I was a father. It flabbergasted me then, as it does now. I saluted the MSgt, in fact. “Airman, congratulations, but you don’t salute me because I’m not an officer. And you don’t salute ANYONE  indoors.” Oops.

So, the perfect day? As you’ve guessed by now, I’m sure, it came nearly two months later. I busted my ass to find an apartment for my new family and I signed the lease and got the keys. And the day finally came.

My wife’s uncle was, coincidentally, a colonel in the Air Force who happened to be the commander of ALL the training squadrons at Keesler. My wife pulled up in front of the Triangle (a gathering place for us dweeby trainees) while her mother and my new daughters waited at her uncle’s house. I stood there, hugging her tightly for ages, soaking in the feel and the smell of her all over again. I’d been so starved for her the last 3-1/2 months I was crying. We kissed and hugged and kissed again and then got into the car to drive across base to visit a place no dweeby trainee had ever been: the Officer Housing Area.

I had a cast on my left leg. I had fallen down some stairs and tore the ligaments in my left foot. Had to wear the damned thing for six weeks. I’m just now remembering that I had it on that day.

Then came the moment when we got to her uncle’s house. I went in and there were a number of people there I didn’t know, members of my new extended family. I gravitated immediately to my mother-in-law, who I’d also missed a lot. We hugged and cracked some pleasantries, all of them immediately passing from my mind because what I was really looking for was…them.

“Sit down, Daddy,” said my MIL. I did. Sat down on the sofa.

Within a few moments, I had these two tiny perfect packages thrust into my arms. Little strangers wrapped tightly in little tiny clothes, wiggling around on my lap. Somewhere there is a photo of that moment – I’d have to sift through boxes and boxes and boxes to find it – where I look utterly shell-shocked with these creatures in my arms.

How on Earth could these beautiful teeny people have resulted from anything that I did? An idiotic oaf like me? Astounding. Bloody impossible.

Yet, there they were. In my lap. Living proof that I didn’t totally fuck up at everything.

Even though the day is muchly a blur in my mind’s eye, I do remember that absolutely everything about it was perfect.

I even remember the next morning, waking up at the girls’ slightest breaths – before they could even whimper, let alone cry. I left my sleeping, exhausted wife in bed and sprinted to their crib. I stared at them in awe as they stared right back at me, and I found my eyes welling up once again (as they did many times in those early days).

It took me some time to muster up my courage and dare to pick them up, but I did. I was determined to let my wife rest and to prove that I could do this. I brought them out to the living room and placed them on the blanket upon the carpeted floor. And I changed their wet diapers as if it were the most glorious and amazing privilege on Earth.

And it was.