I usually tell stories by starting at the end. I was told this doesn’t work in book form, so for the most part in this, my first book, I’ve tried to switch it up a bit and play by the rules. I hate rules. I always like to start with the end, or the lesson learned, the huge mistake, or the heartbreaking victory, then work my way back and tell you how I got there. That’s always the most interesting part to me, the how I got there. I’ll never save anything, hold back, or leave you hanging. I tell you exactly how the story ends as soon as I start telling it.
I start with the end of stories because that’s always the hardest part to tell.
In the front of this book, right there in the dedication, is a note directing Katherine to come here first. Right to this page. This is where I want her to start. At the end.
The day I signed the deal to publish this book, we knew the offers were coming that morning, but I was still more nervous than I’d ever been. Even after all the contracts I’ve negotiated in the past, and the ones I’ve left on the table just because they didn’t feel right, I was shitting my pants. I walked into the house to get set up, and Katherine had a cocktail and a gold party hat waiting for me on the coffee table—at 10:30 a.m. She’d already cleared her entire day. I reached for the drink, and before the glass hit my lips, she told me to put the hat on.
“Can I not?” I asked her. It felt silly and I was out-of-my-mind stressed and hadn’t prepared for this. A show. “Can I just sit? Take the call?”
“No way. Not a chance,” she told me. “We celebrate things in this family. This is your life, and we’re going to celebrate it.”
Faith is a gift that I’ve not yet received. That’s no secret, but it’s nothing I’m ashamed of. I’m not at all a spiritual or religious person, and I’ve never prayed to anything or anyone in any sort of serious way. Not even at my worst, my most lost, or my lowest low. I’ve never asked for that kind of help. I don’t believe in fate. But I do believe in luck, and I believe that there’s only so much of it to go around. I believe when I’m having a lucky day, someone else probably isn’t. Then, of course, your luck changes. It always changes, and when it does, you don’t fight to keep it, or try to take more than you can use. You let it go, and hope it makes its way to someone who needs it a little more than you do that day.
I’ve had more than my share of bad luck, but I’ve always tried to do my best, be a good person, even when things aren’t going my way. The luckiest night of my life was the night I met Katherine. I didn’t need any more lucky days after that one, and I’d happily hand them all over to just about anyone so they could feel what I feel when I’m with her. Even if it is just for one lucky day.
The best part about writing a book, telling your story, is you get to be the hero. But I’m not the hero of my story, Katherine is. I always thought that the goal was to find somebody who completes you, but that’s just not the case. The goal, the mission, and that beautifully crushing adventurous quest is to find someone who’s all the things you’re not. I wish I was a person who led with compassion. I wish I was more open, less cynical, and only ever saw the best in people, but I’m not. It’s still hard for me, but that’s okay. Katherine is all those things. She’s all the things I’m not, and everything I hope to be.
When you choose to spend your life with someone, you’re also choosing the person who’ll tell your story when you’re gone, and if you’re lucky, you find someone who only sees the best in you. Katherine is the reason for all of this. There are simply no words without her. There’s no story worth telling.
Neither of us has ever felt that there was a step we were missing out on, and we’ve never talked about marriage. Not in any sort of serious way, anyway. We were an instant family, and with rain on our faces and luck on our side we strapped in and rode to the top of that mountain and never looked back. With our relationship, and the love and life we share, there’s simply no way to level up, because where do you go from here? Anything more would feel greedy.
I’ve never felt there was anything better out there for us, and we certainly never felt pressure to prove our love to anyone else except each other. And I try to do that with every breath I have, and will continue to do so until my last.
If you’re asking yourself right now if all this, this entire book, life, and story, was my way of finding the words to ask Katherine to marry me…
Well, you might not be right, but you sure as fuck aren’t wrong.
I want to start with the end and write that next part together.
A book isn’t a book and a life isn’t a life until you’re done. Everything up to that point is still a work in progress.