If you’re interested in really, ridiculously moronic things that people do in the name of love, then boy are you in luck today! This post will take a significant amount of pride-swallowing, but if you can’t look back at your mistakes in life and laugh – well, you might just find yourself at the edge of a steep cliff without a parachute. And then this blog wouldn’t really be all that funny anymore. It would be rather sad, actually. Luckily I own my mistakes like a boss and I’m hilarious, so it’s a win-win.
When I got back to Maine from my relaxing vacation in Dirt Paradise, I fell right back into my normal routine. Working at Morgan Stanley by day, and watching Anthony’s games online by night. The media quality was pretty good. I’d say the camera they used was about half a megapixel and the commentating was in straight jibberish so all of us at home could really follow along. Basically I set my laptop on the bed and when I heard anything that sounded like ‘Anthony D’Alfonso’ or ‘Americano grande,’ I’d pick it up and watch the screen freeze 45 times. Once in awhile I could hear the crack of the bat, so that was exciting.
It wasn’t exciting enough though. Anthony and I talked every night after his game about how much we missed each other and wanted to be together. I’m pretty sure he even told me he couldn’t make it out there without me. (Swoon). “We’ll make it work, we’ll figure it out,” he’d tell me. He had played 6.5 seconds of Mexican baseball and he was promising me inflated income from his non-existent, winter-ball jobs that would support us after the regular season. At the start of these conversations, I still had a functioning brain and quickly dismissed the idea. Then, the longer I sat at my desk at Morgan Stanley and recognized my severe short-comings as a potential financial adviser, I thought, “Shit, maybe I can make this happen.” All I had to do was quit my job, be unemployed for the first time in my life since I was legally allowed to work, break my lease at my west end apartment, collect unemployment and drive across the whole country with my dog and whatever else I could fit in my BMW coupe. I know, sometimes I blow myself away with how innovative I am too. I’ll save you the suspense of wondering ‘what the hell was she thinking?!’ Here was my justification: I wasn’t happy in my job. Don’t all those quotes on Pinterest tell you to follow your dreams and never look back?And then they go on to tell you never to worry what others think of you. Really misleading stuff, if you ask me. I had never really moved away from home except for college, so branching out and experiencing a new culture could really only make me more worldly. I had some great success in my career and a college degree so I could find a job easily. And people always thought I was somewhat materialistic, so moving into ‘Grandma’ would surely put those rumors to bed. Last but not least, YOLO – a justification that works for pretty much anything you want to do in life that otherwise suggests your stupid.
So, with YOLO in mind and the encouragement of friends and family to do what makes me happy, I shut down my entire life in Maine and hit the road for Arizona. I have to say, I’ve got some pretty great friends who watched me commit career suicide, and stood by my choice to be a total moron. I have an even cooler mom who offered to make the trek with me so that I didn’t have to be alone. In all fairness, she’s probably an even bigger hopeless romantic than I am and chalked this up to being a proper wifey. And by wifey, I mean girlfriend of less than a year. So with mom and my traveling dog in tow, we started in on my culturally-enhancing journey. I’ll tell ya what though, the Motel 8’s are pretty much the same shit-holes in Massachusetts as they are in Illinois as they are in Texas, so not as much learning as I anticipated really occurred. That’s okay, I’m sure plenty of mind-blowing experiences awaited me in Yuma.
I dropped Mom off at the airport in Phoenix, and made the last three-hour drive to Yuma by myself. I have to admit, it started to feel a little strange at this point. What was even more peculiar, was pulling my BMW up next to ‘Grandma’ in an RV park and unloading my 40 pairs of designer jeans and stiletto heels. When some toothless guy popped by to welcome me to the “neighborhood” (slash sandbox) and informed me of Wednesday night bingo, I realized my heels would never see the light of day again. Still, I had faith that I had made the right decision for my life and being with my love was all that mattered. He ‘needed me’ after all, and I wasn’t one to disappoint. What was disappointing though, was the extra day it took for Anthony and his mother to make it back to the RV from Mexico. Mama D had made a wrong turn while following the team bus and got them lost on the way home. So instead of finding their way back through Mexico, they had to wait at the Tijuana border crossing for over five hours and then drive the 3 more hours through America back to Yuma. When they got back at 7 in the morning, all they wanted to do was sleep. Man, this was exciting already – I could almost feel the cultural knowledge seeping into my brain at the speed of light.
The events that ensued after this day are not for the faint of heart, and that’s a fair warning. Reading any further blog entries may seriously alter your opinion of me as a human being, and make you question the mental capacity of my once logical brain. One thing you won’t question after this though, is if I love Anthony or not. There isn’t a single soul on the planet who would willingly experience our journey and still be together 3 years later, if they weren’t madly (and I stress, madly) in love with each other. We have single-handedly redefined “crazy in love.”
the bitching mound 