Little Moments

Cheryl and I have been married for 18 years now and we are still very much in love. We really are best friends, and enjoy hanging out together.

I find it curious that after so much time spent together, we still have a lot to learn about each other. The only problem is that the only time you can do that is when you are face to face! Let me explain what I mean.

It’s fun when you catch someone really being themselves while they don’t think anyone is watching. It’s the times when they sing in the shower, dance in the kitchen when no one is around, or give themselves an “atta boy” after accomplishing a task that seemed impossible.

These private moments are precious and can teach us a lot about our loved ones when are given the rare opportunity to be a part of them.

Cheryl’s taste in music has always differed from my own. I love 80s rock…she hates it. In the 90s I was really into Pearl Jam, she would rather eat a bar of soap! Cheryl likes 70s southern rock, folk singers like James Taylor and Carly Simon, and she likes one old school rap song from the early 80s by a band named “Whodini,” The song is titled “Friends.”

Now, Cheryl will not sing out loud to any song. Whether we are in the van, house, or even if she is in the shower…she simply does not do it. I have never known her to be a singer; which is why the other day was such a unique opportunity for me to “peek” inside her personal time and learn a little more about my girl.
Have you ever been “butt dialed?” You know…when someone is putting their cell phone into their pocket and they mistakenly dial your number.

You answer and you can hear them talking, but they have absolutely no idea you are on the other end of the line. Well, if that has ever happened to you, then you have been, what we in our family call, “butt dialed;” Cheryl “butt dialed” me yesterday.

I ran to answer my I-phone because I could see that it was her and I figured it was important. It only took me a second to realize that she did not know she had called my phone.

She was leaving the grocery store, and I could hear her getting into the van and leaving the parking lot. That was when the coolest thing happened.

I heard her turn on the CD player in the van and start flipping through the songs. It was obvious that she was looking for a specific song. I swear I felt like a little kid who had stumbled onto some hidden treasure as I sat in the house and listened to her searching for a song that she wanted to hear. That was when it happened…Whodini…friends…she found it.

All of a sudden Cheryl starts rapping the lyrics to the song right along with the music, and I could tell that she was really getting into it. It was the coolest thing in the world, to be there in that moment, and hear my wife of 18 years cutting loose and just being herself while rapping to a song that she has loved since she was a teenager.

You see, I wasn’t there when she was a teenager; that is a part of her life that I will never be able to know firsthand. But yesterday, as I sat there on the other end of a phone call that Cheryl had absolutely no idea she made, I felt like I was right there with her, 1985, graduation year, and it was magical.