After returning back from an extra-long night of class, I decided that I had time before watch (0200-0400) to write an update. I had the opportunity to go on leave and visit Jessica up at the Culinary Institute of American (CIA) up in Hyde Park (Poughkeepsie), New York. After a night of jet-lagged sleep (I hadn’t slept for two days prior to arriving), we decided to break some news to both our parents: we’re expecting. To my surprise, nobody flipped their script (except my ma, she feels ancient) everybody came out with absolute warm welcomes. The weekend went awesome (although I think Jess hates me now - but thats understandable), and I had a nice time relaxing with her and the spawn (spawn of satan), as well as chilling with Mike and Joe. The trip back is always a nightmare, no matter where I vacation to, and this time was no difference. My original plans were to fly out from White Plains, I ended up flying out of LaGuardia instead (go figure). I’m pretty sure I didn’t take any pictures while I was up there, but I am still in debt with pictures from the Disturbed concert, I’m still trying to work that out (phone problems).
In light of all my travel, I found it suitable to write up a little ‘memoir’ if you will. Criticize it as you will, but I wrote it for Jessica and its really just meant for her (this is just an easier way to read it for her).
Jessica Rene Figueroa, I cannot say I remember every piece of the day I met you on Kelly Edward’s trampoline, but what I can say is that I will never forget doing so. I will never forget how you stopped me dead in my tracks with your all-natural and absolutely stunning beauty, how when I finally made my nervous jaunt to the trampoline, you were such a outgoing and intelligent woman (albeit you needed a bit of refining, but I don’t mind your farts being worse than mind. I’ve got the breath anyways :P), and no matter how pudgy I was (it was also the. first time I walked around with my stomach sucked in) or how little you knew me.
I know you like to remember times that I wasn’t too socially-intelligent and how much I hate them, but I’ll indulge you just like I did with the candy bars this weekend.. Fast-forwarding to the first ‘date’ we went on….I will always remember when my dad dropped me off in front of kelley’s with my scooter (it was a bad-ass razor with green wheels and handle bars. I used to take that thing everywhere grinding and doin tricks because I was truly that bad ass). I think I waited half an hour before I had the balls to actually go to your grandma’s trailer door and get you (you terrified me with your beauty, you always have). I can’t really remember if it was because you were still sleeping, or just took for ever to get ready (nothing has changed I see - I love you all the same) but I do remember waiting close to an hour and a half for you to finally come outside. It was the weekend of the jamboree (oh how I hated it then and I miss it so much now). I recall going to meet a few friends (I was still at southview, so it became even more akward for me) at that blue house I lived across from (I’m pretty sure) when me and my dad lived on cleveland street. We walked around all day and that’s truly all I could remember.
We’ll skip ahead a few years when I had a buddy that lived in the apartments in the building. Adam was his name I think. He told me about how much he loved this skate-park and how chill the pastor was (Dave) and that it’d be lame if I didn’t go. I went and there you were, over the time we subtly involved each other more and more. I will never ever ever forget that first kiss in emily’s car. How I “attacked” you (it was truly the other way around) at the top of the hill (middle ridge and south lake) and it continued all the way down. Than we got to the front of that building your grandpa lives in (funny enough, the same hallway too!) and snuck into the laundry room and sucked face for an hour or so. I got in so much shit that night because I was so late from getting back.
Scooting some time before that, it truly broke my heart when you had to leave. That was the first time crying over you. I was standing with my ma’s little red phone in my room in the right window that faced the park. I think that that was when I was hating the world and that was the straw that broke the back, it made me give up I suppose. I don’t recall much after that other than resentment and depression, but I guess it brings some closure that it wasn’t me that killed us off, but the works of both of us.
Moving onto the “petrock-era”, that just absolutely broke my heart. I guess its just had for me to move on, because I never did. Even though it appeared like I did, it killed me every second I had to fake it, especially when I hung out with you two. I hate saying this, but I’m happy that didn’t wok out because you really truly did save my life jessica, someday the skeletons will come out of the closet and you’ll see how close I was to becoming another statistic of depression.
Now cutting to the pandora’s box (if you will). I hit hard after I quit smoking and essentially isolated myself from everyone I knew. So I turned to you. I sat for a week playing with my phone trying to figure out what I’d say to you, I knew it had to be something that would make you read twice. I sat for that week by myself drinking, crying, sitting. I was all alone and I hit my absolute bottom. I went down to the tracks and texted you what I thought was sufficient for what I felt: I love you. You responded, and the rest is truly history.
I hit an almost equal low that first night I got the chance to write you a letter. I wrote you close to 30 letters those first two weeks. I hope you have them all. Someday I’d like to match our letters up and have a little story. I was appointed the mail po (petty officer, I took care of all mail duties), it took two weeks to get your letter. It got to the last two nights before I finally got one, to upset me enough to cry and the night I got it, I cried again. I read all your letters once I got them, then read them all in succession (even though they were only a paragraph or so). When we marched into that drill hall and I looked up and saw mike, liz, and than you I teared up. If it wasn’t for my momma sitting right in front of me, making me be strong, I would’ve cried the whole ceremony. I wasn’t as happy for graduating as I was that I had persued a goal to make you proud, and I knew I made it happen. Those two nights sealed the deal, I was a new man in more than one sense, and I fell into a new sort of romantic passion with you.
I remember going out on liberty with blevins (how could I forget?), we were at gurney mills laughing about woman and of course you fell into topic. I guess from what I was saying it sounded like a good idea to him for convincing me to “just look” at rings. We both sat there while the clerk tried their harðest to convince me on a big ring, I had no fucking clue so I just asked you! Small and simple, that’s what you got! The months following that and previous to going on christmas leave, I thought of the ways I could ask you, not in text-form but as a real man who had a real love for a real woman. Than the opportunity came to go to Aspen and spend christmas with you, I knew I couldn’t ask for a more golden opportunity. Everyday I came back from school and I took your ring out and played with it, looked at it, and thought about what this ring truly meant and what it symbolized in our lives. It was all good until I got to the airport terminal and realized I had left the fucker on base (I wanted to shoot myself in the dick for that), but I knew that if I didn’t ask you as I planned, it wouldn’t have the ability to be a funny story, like I normally go for with times in my life. All I can say to you, since its between us and summed in two words that have their own story: SHOWER SCENE!
That weekend we got married was an absolute adventure. The whole dealwith getting married was an adventure in itself, but throwing your parents (your dad was pretty cool, but your momma would have driven the pope to drink!) into the mix made it an adventure worthy of its own book. I’ll never forget when we were in the office and your ma kept blurting out about the “pre-mie”, while we sat there with our faces in our hands.
You not being able to stand still with your hands in mine was absolutely adorable, and you were giddy like a little school girl the whole day after. Being with you as my wife for the first time was and will always remain on my list of most fondest memories.
Over all of this you morphed from my crush, sweetheart, heartbreaker, life-saver, hope-giver, fiance, wife, and now my child’s mother. You gave to me a hopeful last breath of life, and now you’re giving us both an infinite number of breaths iin the form of our first child. I can’t begin to tell you of how much I really truly love you or how much you really mean to me or how much you have transformed my life from waste to gold and how gracefully you did so. I can though, try and give you an idea by writing all of this, and by telling you how excited I am to raise a family, go on life’s adventures, and live life with you by my side.
With every ounce of love,
- Poppa