IRISHMAN FOR HIRE

I came home from work the other day and was greeted with another reminder of the fact that I am getting old; I was sent a “save the date” card for my high school reunion. Last year, I was sent an invitation for my 20th reunion and this year would mark my 21st year since graduation. If being married, having a mortgage, kids, two cars and a regular nine to five job hadn’t reminded me on a daily basis of my maturation in the life process; the reminder card for my high school reunion did the trick. I am officially old!

Later that night, I thought about what I was doing as I was getting ready to go back to school to start my senior year. I would like to say that I remembered it fondly, but I didn’t. I remembered being excited to finish the final year of high school so I could move on with my life. But the more I thought about that time, the more I recalled how I had been completely and utterly “snubbed” by the school administration at the conclusion of my junior year.

My parents had decided to enroll me in a prep school in the northwestern hills of Connecticut. My father was an alumnus and my brother was a senior when I was a freshman. I never had a choice in the decision. It was a foregone conclusion when my brother and I were younger that we would be spending our high school years at prep school.

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A couple of weeks ago, I went out to lunch with a friend of mine. He works in the technology industry, so as we ate, he told me about some of the new paraphernalia that was going to hit the open market in the next few months. It was awesome to hear about some of the items that I will be able to use in the not-so-distant future but for me, these conversations have become commonplace. And for that reason alone, I sometimes forget that living in the Boston area means that I am living on the cutting edge of technology. I get to learn about and utilize new items, gizmos, gadgets, and promotions before they ever find their way into regular use throughout the rest of the country.

I started to tell my friend about a trip Stephanie and I took back in September of 2005. Stephanie and I decided to forego the typical anniversary presents that we normally bought for each other and we decided to take the family to the Adirondack Balloon Festival in upstate New York.

We had gone to the Adirondack Balloon Festival many years ago when Stephanie was a student at Skidmore College. We had talked about going to Albuquerque, NM for the annual Balloon Fiesta they have every October, but we have never been able to afford the trip. Stephanie had been pining over a return trip to the balloon festival in upstate New York for years and I had wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of Boston. So for our ninth anniversary, we decided to head up to Lake George for the Adirondack Balloon Festival.

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It was a cold and rainy morning. It was one of those days when the damp air settled into your bones and the rain felt like little ice picks that pierced any exposed skin on contact. My body felt like it was full of miniature tunnels as the wind whipped through me and chilled me to the core as I waited to take the Red Line from North Quincy to Downtown Crossing.

The platform was full of people who were standing shoulder to shoulder waiting for the next train to arrive and in many respects, trying to stay warm. As the train slowly came to a stop at the station, everyone decided to race through the open doors all at once and the entry way to the train became jammed with people who were jostling for the best position to get onto each car. I waited until the last person entered and then I stepped onto the train.

I decided that it must have been the weather that made everyone act so impolitely and selfishly. I didn’t want to believe that this many people could be rude to each other while trying to get to work or to school in the morning. It had to be the rain that had affected everyone’s better judgment and nothing else. But to my surprise, I noticed something that struck me as odd as the train pulled out of the station and made its way into Boston. I noticed that chivalry was dead.

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Would you pay a consultant to help you name your child? According to a report I saw on the Fox affiliate in Boston (WFXT) last Tuesday night, ten percent of the people in a poll at babycenter.com would be willing to hire a consultant to help them name their child. I must say that I was a little flabbergasted at the idea of a name consultant. Has naming a child become so difficult that we have to ask other people to do it for us? I don’t believe that it has but having been through the naming process a couple of times; I can understand a couple’s trepidation over the entire ordeal.

In 2005, my wife and I had been locked in a debate over baby names for our daughter for months. It had been a very strenuous negotiation and an extremely exhausting process. There were times when I felt like we were never going to come to any sort of agreement on a name for our daughter. It was why our neighbors must have felt like they saw white smoke rising from the chimney above our home when, on my thirty-sixth birthday, my wife, Stephanie, and I had finally agreed upon a name for our daughter. But I digress.

The process had been a long and difficult course of action because we both believed that the name we would ultimately give to our daughter would be with her in positive and negative ways for the rest of her life. We didn’t want to give our daughter a “cookie cutter” name but we also didn’t want to give her a name that was so far off the societal spectrum that only Moon Unit and Dweezil Zappa would be able to relate to her constant playground ridicule. And thus, our naming process had begun.

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It was an overcast and chilly morning. As Stephanie and I waited for the train in Norwalk, CT. on Saturday, March 16, 1996, I felt an unexplainable feeling in my gut. I had had the feeling the week prior when I made this trip with her mother. It was the feeling of trepidation; the uncertainty of stumbling onto a truth that could ultimately change my life forever. The only unknown was if the revelation would impact my life for the better or for the worse, but there was no turning back now. I had to know.

As we boarded the train and found a couple of seats, we engaged in some small talk. I wish I could remember what we had talked about on our way to New York City but I can’t. Maybe it would have some relevance to the rest of the story or maybe it wouldn’t. I don’t know. What I do remember is that the butterflies were once again flying furiously in my stomach. I remember feeling a tinge of irony as I boarded the train because I thought about the previous weekend when Stephanie’s mom and I had made the same trek to New York City. Stephanie and I were taking the same exact train, at the same exact time and we were headed for the same exact destination but this time, I could only hope that we would not encounter the same exact result.

Stephanie’s mom and I had spent the entire day scrolling page by page, line by line through the volumes of books trying to locate a single solitary number. It was monotonous. It was tedious. It was eye-crossing, neck stiffening, droning work that required very little thought on our part but mandated the ability to pay very close attention to detail. There was one number that would match. It was a needle in the haystack approach and in the end, could we ever be one hundred percent convinced that we didn’t miss it?

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We all have rituals that we go through in the morning; little rites of passage that help us wake up and get us ready for the day. My morning routine is simple. I wake up, hop in the shower, eat something for breakfast, engage the family in some small talk, brush my teeth and pull my belongings together before I head out the door to work. I give my wife Stephanie a kiss and walk to the front door of our house. I open the front door and turn around and say quite loudly, “Bye, guys!”

My children come running as soon as I make my announcement. Joshua is the first one to get to the door; he gives me a big hug good-bye and then heads back to the sofa to watch cartoons. Chloe always gets to the door last and then proceeds to make sure she kisses my right cheek, then my left cheek, then she gives me a kiss on the chin, we rub noses and then I give her butterfly kisses on her cheek before she laughs devilishly and gives me a “buzzer” on one of my cheeks.

“I love you, Papa,” she always says to me as I stand up to walk out the door. On days like today, she will watch me walk all the way out to the car while blowing me kisses. In between the blown kisses she will yell at the top of her lungs “I love you, Papa” over and over again through the storm door of our house until I respond.

I blew her one final kiss, jumped into my car and headed off to work feeling a little melancholy. They say that the grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence. My wife gets to stay home with my cherubs and trust me; there have been many days when that “green-eyed monster” inside of me has reared its ugly head at the fact that I miss out on so much of their childhood when I am at work. There are days I actually wish I could trade places with Stephanie.

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I have decided that every year at the end of the awards season (The Golden Globes, The Oscars, The Grammy’s, etc.), I am going to give out a single award here at Irishman For Hire called the Blarney Stone Award. The Blarney Stone is a block of bluestone atop the Blarney Castle in Ireland and it is widely believed that anyone who kisses the Blarney Stone (different link) will be endowed with the “gift of gab (great eloquence or skill at flattery).”

The criteria for the Blarney Stone award is simple, “Thank those who have had an impact on my life before it’s too late to express the gratitude that I have.” I cannot guarantee that the recipient will become eloquent or a great speaker but the fact of the matter is that it was the eloquence of their actions has spoken volumes to me in my life. We always intend to tell those important people in our lives what they have meant to us but more often than not, we never get the chance to say to our friends and family members what we truly feel in our hearts until it is too late.

Today, I am going to try and make a concerted effort to thank those special people in my life. This is easier said, than done though. I have a lot of people to thank for the polished and debonair individual that you have read about in the preceding pages. I have also screwed up along the road of life but unfortunately for me, the blame for those mistakes falls squarely upon my shoulders. But let me digress for a moment because I want to tell you about a person who will always be considered one of the “Most Influential People in My Life.”

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Rumor has it that you will never forget your first love. I have been told that when the unbridled feeling of love is unleashed within your heart for the first time, the wave of unfettered emotion is both undeniable and uncontrollable. From that initial moment when that spark is ignited within your soul, love will take hold of your heart and your life will be instantly changed forever.

Love has changed my life. Love has brought me some of the most amazing feelings of pure happiness but in all fairness, some of the most difficult phases of my life have been a direct result of a love that was lost. I cannot fight or refute the power of love in the world. Love is a powerful emotion and as I was sitting around the other night thinking about my life, I realized that I too have not forgotten my first love.

She has enchanted me with her enlightened eclecticism, seduced me with her sensual, yet stimulating sonnets, and intoxicated me with the intricacies of her wistful mannerisms. The complexities of my own cathartic endeavors will forever haunt me as I delve the hallowed anthems that have sprung forth from her charters and constitutions. She has loved me like no other, she has inspired me beyond my wildest dreams and she has, at times, broken my heart like no one ever could.

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