On this date, March 2nd, I thank all those who have broken my heart, insulted me, offended me, failed to believe in me, underestimated me, or talked shit about me behind my back. Two years ago today, on March 2nd, 2012, Ileana walked out on me, walking right out the door to my apartment at 1015 Bainbridge Street. I haven't had any direct contact with her since.
Earlier today, before I got out of bed to take a shower before church, I thought about two episodes where I really felt hurt and then ashamed of my reaction. First, when I was a senior in high school, I remember dating for a very short period of time one of the most desirable girls of the junior class, Marissa McCormick, a beautiful girl with lush, curly hair. She was a goalie on the field hockey team. And she was later that year voted as the best looking girl of her class, or something along those lines. I remember going on a double date with her and Mike Potter and the girl he was dating at the time. We went to the Friendly's right by the Marlton Circle (the intersection of Routes 70 & 73, no longer a circle for at least four or five years). Anyway, it may have been later that night after the double date that another guy, Tim, from our football team threw a house party. We had lost to Pemberton earlier that day, putting this whole episode on Saturday, October 14, 1995. Marissa and I both went to the house party. I don't remember if I picked her up to go there, or if we just met there. But we were definitely dating, or so I thought. I don't remember much about the night, except that I think I was trying to play it cool by not being attached to her. Maybe that was my mistake, because I recall that I hadn't seen her for a while and so I went looking for her. I opened the door to a bedroom to find her sitting on the bed with one of my friends on the team, John Cidoni. It's possible that I immediately jumped to a false conclusion, but even my written description now seems hard to justify, so I was understandably hurt by what I saw. I remember going back downstairs where I had been sitting in the basement. I remember talking with Taryn Young and I think also with Mia Tatum, a couple of the cheerleaders, both very beautiful young women in their own right. And I remember getting upset to the point of crying. I admit before God and whoever later reads this that I'm a sensitive guy; there's no doubt about that. But I still feel a bit ashamed at my emotional reaction. Although I had good reason to feel betrayed -- not so much by Marissa, between whom we had not likely developed any kind of allegiance, but more so from my friend, Cidoni -- I still feel like I could have handled the situation with more grace.
The second episode didn't happen too much later, as the calendar would indicate. I was a sophomore in college, so this was the fall of 1997. It happened during a football game, although I don't remember which one. At that point, I was still our team's starting wide receiver. The moment really hit me at halftime, although it had been building up since some point in the second quarter, and at a deeper level pretty much since the start of the season. I had a terrible first half, dropping at least a couple easy balls. The point in the second quarter, that I refer to just above, was what should have been a very easy catch, but was instead a dropped pass. I was frustrated. And it had been building for a while. I was being underutilized by the coach, Barry Streeter. In other words, I felt that my skills and my talents were being taken for granted, or even worse just disregarded. That was the issue, not so much the frustration of the moment, but the fact that I felt like less of a person than I had considered myself. It made me question my identity as a football player, as the best wide receiver that I knew. And when I got into the locker room at halftime, it was too much to hold back. I took off my helmet and cried by my locker. I couldn't handle it. Again, I think back to this episode and I wonder if I had the emotional grit to handle the situation with more grace, perhaps wait until a more private moment to release my pent-up frustration and self-doubt. Or perhaps not. Perhaps that was exactly what needed to happen.
When I look back at both of those moments, I see that something "good" came out of each one. After the first, I developed a hunger to hit Cidoni in tackling drills and the like during practice. Before that, I'd always had an aversion, if not fear, to hitting and being hit. My love for the game of football had more to do with displaying my skills in having really good hands to catch the football and exceptional speed to set myself apart, athletically, from everyone else on the field. Now, in reaction to this episode of hurt, I wanted to punish Cidoni. And I overcame my fear of hitting others as hard as I could. I remember that it was later that same season that I put a huge hit on Aamir Dew in our win against #6-ranked nationally Toms River North. And I wasn't scared any more of getting hit.
After the second episode, I think I began to realize that my own identity was more than a football player, or at least it had to be, and I had to figure out how so. Right before I was supposed to report to camp in August 1998, I called Coach Streeter to tell him that I wasn't going to return to the team. I had been developing as a team leader during the off-season work-outs, but I decided to apply those skills elsewhere. I joined our college chapter of Amnesty International and eventually led it to the second biggest budget for a student organization on campus and ushered in a period of increased membership and activity on campus.
Maybe this is all revisionist history on my part, especially since I still feel a bit of shame from my reaction to both episodes of hurt. I hope I'm remembered for more than just my reactions. I hope I'm remembered for being genuine in my emotions. And more than that, I hope I'm remembered for the positive aspects: for being desired by a really desirable girl, for being a great football player, for being a good organizational leader, and for always putting my heart into whatever I did.
Circling back to the commemoration of today's date, I also know that I was devastated by Ileana walking out that door. The next two months marked one of the biggest depressions of my life (on par with my third year of law school). Similar to the first story, I felt rejected by a girl. And similar to the second story, I felt like I had lost a big piece of my identity. But like both stories above, something really good came out of it: only six months later, to the day (September 2, 2012), I met my wife at a Labor Day barbecue I hosted at the very same apartment at 1015 Bainbridge Street. And not just that, I had learned the importance of valuing and cherishing my relationship with my partner. Since then, I'm very aware that I've been blessed by God, and I'm very thankful.
Sometimes, it's the people who hurt us in some way that teach us the most. This March 2nd, I thank those people by still being here, being alive, and being happy.
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