I was finding marriage this time around quite different than before. Gary had always been very involved in sports, and it seemed his mission was to turn me into a little jockette. I had never even swung a baseball bat before, but he patiently took me to a schoolyard close by and had me practice swinging the bat as he threw a softball as S-L-O-W as he could. I didn’t even come close to hitting it at first, yet as time went on I got to be pretty good and ended up playing 3rd base on two different women’s softball teams!
We also began playing tennis, and learned how to play golf. Wow, what a different lifestyle this was!
But what about having kids? Nope – we were both way too much into our own lives to be thinking about such a thing. Every weekend during the spring and summer we pretty much were gone – either at softball tournaments or golf outings. Wow, this was so much fun!
Of course we spent a lot of time with our friends partying, as well. Here was a guy that was so much like me in many ways, and yet so different in others. I just loved him to pieces.
Another new exciting thing was that both Gary and I had gotten new jobs in totally new fields – he got into sales, and I ended up working in a large law firm in Seattle as a receptionist.
My new job was soooooo exciting! Every day I got to put on nice professional clothes and high heeled shoes to go to work in one of the large buildings downtown. I wanted to learn all I could about my new profession, and used to pretend that I was much more important than I really was as I walked the busy streets in Seattle at lunchtime. Who knows – maybe some people thought I was an attorney or something!
I made some great new friends at my job, and a group of us gals used to go out on Friday nights occasionally to a waterfront Mexican restaurant and have triple margaritas for only $3.00! One Friday night Gary actually let me drive his precious Trans Am to work (Am I Getting My Life Together Yet?) and after having too many margaritas I decided to put the car to the test by gunning the engine over some railroad tracks in front of a train, and then driving 100mph on an I-5 bypass in Seattle. (Of course I didn’t tell Gary these things until years later!)
Other traits of my personality hadn’t changed much either. I still had a habit of being nice to those people at work who I liked and thought could help my career, and being quite nasty to some of my co-workers if I just didn’t see any need for them.
One day I was sitting at the front desk at work answering phones, when all of a sudden one of the secretaries came over to my desk to chat for a bit. The thing was: I really didn’t care for her – she seemed quite odd to me as a lot of times during her breaks she would go and sit in one of the stairwells at work. Why would she do that? Plus she just dressed so oddly. She would wear these long dresses to work and had on no makeup.
Anyway, over she came, and then told me she wanted to give me something. She handed me a Bible! She said something to the effect that she really wanted me to have it. I took it as graciously as I could, and then as soon as she walked away I quickly hid it in one of my desk drawers. I certainly didn’t want any of the attorneys or my friends to see me with it! I took it home after work and stuck it away somewhere, conveniently forgetting all about it.
Little did I know what an impact it would have on me one day…
The God Of All Comfort 