sarah and i.
are.
alabama football.


it's funny that he put it this way, but when sarah's dad listened to his daughter telling him about her mom being in the hospital and feeling shorthanded for the coming weekend, his response was, "i am coming. you can add me to the depth chart." perfectly appropriate timing considering we are less than two weeks away from the first college football saturday of the fall. football analogy aside, it spoke, in a very profound way, to the way that our support system seems to be strengthening at the same time our family (sarah, hannah, caroline and me) does the same. this is, most likely, not a coincidence.

when sarah and i met and began our courtship, our family compared and contrasted in similar ways. we both came from divorced families. we both were raised in strong, single (at least in spirit) mom households. we had brothers on/recovering from drugs. we had both lost touch and contact for some period with our fathers. done the same with god and church. we were caring people and giving of our time. but we couldn't seem to translate that care and concern fully to the significant other that we happened to be around. and then we ran into each other.

and something, very naturally, clicked.

we married, but my baggage, at the very least, would keep us far away from our relationship "peaking too early." we were strong in ways. not so strong in others. we knew of mistakes of our parents that we didn't want to make again, but that would not prevent us from making up some of our own. we had hannah. we stayed busy. we enjoyed some days. and we didn't others. i couldn't get over how many jackasses there were at my church. i left the church. sarah supported me. i went to huntsville.

and then it clicked for real. it took almost four years for us to learn how to be married. and now it all makes sense. the bad seems silly. the past seems like, merely, a means to a greater end. and we now move forward. stronger than ever.

along the way, as our health increased, other things improved. sarah's dad, who had already peeked his head back into the door, knocked the door down and introduced himself as her father again. my friendships with andy and kiker became defined by real life and not just by sports. my other friendships found new meaning. young persons that i befriended while they were in high school became true friends that i could call on short notice and they would be happy to pick up hannah from school and take care of her. relationships with youth council members evolved into adult and meaningful conversations over mexican food. we randomly visited with my mother and nothing bad happened. things change, but things never change. these are only small (in number) examples of my and our cup beginning to overflow. and this doesn't even include the fact that i am beginning to look forward to church again.

great things have a tendency to lose their shine from time to time. just ask alabama football. but if something was great from the beginning and the legacy's foundation was laid true, there will always be potential for a new coat of wax. a new look. a sparkplug here. a five-star recruit there. an anniversary and second child everywhere. it's just a matter of putting things back in perspective.

the good things along the way of my life didn't "just happen", but i kept getting in my own way and couldn't appreciate what was happening. and that doesn't mean that everything is perfect now. but the potential for greatness is very much in our grasp. with increasing depth and air in our lungs come the fourth quarter, who knows what we as a family may end up accomplishing. who knows what may be healed or created along the way. who knows will take care of itself.

i read a column this week talking about a major league player that, in his first season, felt like he had to prove his worth in every single game, but this year he was realizing that he and his team were defined by their year, not 1/162 of it. what a wonderful moment that must have been for him. and i can relate. i can look back and see where i tried too hard some days and not hard enough on others. and i can remember the severe peaks and valleys that came with my defining myself by those individual days. i don't know if it's an age thing or a state of mind thing, but i don't do that any more, and i am a lot less stressed, which is a good thing. my and sarah's marriage, if health and circumstances treat us well, will not be defined in any one year. it will hopefully be defined by fifty or more and i count myself blessed to realize that at 30 and not 60. in the same way, my church will not be defined by the success of our effort over the next five years, but that definition and legacy is already written in it's over hundred-year history. that is also good to swallow.

some day in the future, sarah and i will talk about how awesome it was way back when alabama won the national championship in the 2009/10 season. it will be fun to combine those memories with those of '92 and the seventies that we read about and the bear that grumbled over the coolest pregame montage in football. it will be fun to catalog the parallels of our life and the school that helped shape ten-plus years of sarah's life/taught me why "fan" was short for fanatic. it will be easy to remember, with flippancy, the bad times of both. our foundation has been laid true. and we may have to slap on a fresh coat of vacation from time to time. but our life will be well worth cheering for. and the folks we hold near and dear to us will help tell our story.