Janelle. My whole life, I always dreamt of meeting that person who would make me smile and make my heart sing when I saw her, and Janelle is that person. She's perfect for me in every way.
In real life, I am much like I am here. I have been kicked in the teeth by life so many times that I fight. I fight and fight and fight. Nobody gets away with screwing me over or treating me unfairly. I fight back.
Janelle, on the other hand, was raised in a very traditional asian family in a VERY asian neighborhood. People were taught not to fight back, for fear that it would be seen as disrespectful. So Janelle basically goes with the flow, and lets things happen as they do.
So, I end up sticking up for Janelle when someone mistreats her, and she taught me to pick my battles a little more. And when we're alone, she pushes me around and I just do whatever she wants. She's my island, the place I can go to get away from the fight. And, strangely enough, if we're together and someone is rude to me, Janelle goes nuts on them.
That's how we know we love each other. Janelle, someone who wouldn't stand up for herself, would tear someone's throat out if they said something mean to me. And I, the guy who told my mom at 12 years old to either pay me or fuck off when she asked me to do chores, routinely routinely do the dishes and laundry and whatever else Janelle wants me to do. I don't do it bitterly, I do it because she doesn't like to and it makes her happy.
Janelle is a hard science person, a nuclear engineer. She is one of the top students at one of the top schools in the nation, and she was offered jobs at every single one of the most prestigious national labs. I don't think there's anyone who has ever met her who wasn't completely impressed. I know I was... We were kind of a blind date, we talked over AOL IM and kind of liked each other, but we had never seen each other in person. So, when she opened the door and I laid eyes on her, she was so beautiful that I couldn't speak. I was both overjoyed and saddened.
Overjoyed because she was even more beautiful than I had imagined. Saddened because I thought she was out of my league.
Strangely enough, she thought the same about me. We had a lovely date and spent the rest of the night talking. We've been together ever since.
Besides that, probably the day I got my acceptance letter from UM. It had been my dream my entire life to go to UM. Unfortunately, I didn't do well in high school, and after school, I was more interested in drinking, drugs and partying than anything else. One day, I woke up and realized I was getting nowhere, so I enrolled in community college. I stopped drinking, I quit smoking cold turkey. I battled to get myself off of drugs. I lost 140lbs. It took six years of hard work, especially considering that I had to work full time that entire time, but I finally got my AA.
I met a kid at work, who was just working that summer for money for school. He went to UM, and I looked at this kid and thought to myself that this kid was pretty dumb...if he could do it, I could do it. I applied, got in, and even got scholarship money.
Little did I know that UM was a liberal hellhole. Oh well, it got me to OSU, and I met Janelle.
Those are the two things I can think of that mean the most to me.
Anyway, in thinking about this, I totally agree with Crump's post above. Nine months ago, I would have had many different answers, but now all I can think about is my soon-to-arrive child. My wife has an appointment to be induced next Tuesday night, so if there is no labor by then, I'll be a first time proud papa no later than Wednesday. I can't believe how much my life has changed already, and the kid hasn't even arrived yet. It's a good feeling. And I know already that I would do anything to protect my beautiful wife and that child.