Supafly.com

Candyce graduated college on Friday morning. I am proud of her for sticking through six years of such intense work. She’s stuck through it, and now she deserves her life back.

We set up her design exhibit downtown on Thursday evening, a few days ago. It was exciting to see all of the massive amount of work from the other students. Once it was looking pretty, we walked over to Marjerle’s to watch the Suns game. It was a great night to be downtown.

Friday’s graduation ceremony was at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Grady Gammage auditorium in Tempe. I’ve been to a concert there before, with front row tickets. I saw musical a long time ago, and the seats were tucked in the back of the lower level. But this was the first time I was on the upperdeck, and I was scared the whole time. It was just too high off the ground. I felt like I was on a cloud, or looking down from heaven down onto the wood stage beneath me. I just wanted to get out of there before someone slipped and flopped over the railing to their death. When Candyce crossed the stage, I cheered like a true redneck and then left to go to the bathroom where it was less dangerous.

We went out for lunch to celebrate the victory. There were at least 3 tables where friends and family crowded around their graduate. It was like a piece of Americana.

Yesterday was Johnny and Ali’s engagement party over at the Philips’s house. We watched the Suns / Spurs game, which was fun even though we lost. Then this morning (Sunday) we went to Mass early, then the whole clan came over to our house for a Mother’s day brunch. This was the most organized, pleasant meal I’ve ever had in my house. It was like Candyce and I were real grown ups. Gramma and Grampa even came over. Now that I think about it, this whole year has been about parties: the New Year, selling my house, every Suns game, engagement parties, bachelor party, wedding, honeymoon party, and now the graduation parties.

I can’t explain how glad I am that Candyce is done with college. Her professors will no longer rule her life. It’s just the two of us now.

Candyce has moved in, and the guys have finally moved out. Since she’s working around the clock to finish her senior thesis, her stuff is all over the house in boxes, baskets, and stacks. I trip over a high-healed shoe at least once a day.

Then there are all of the gifts people brought to our wedding and sent us in the mail. All that stuff will make this house nice eventually, but for now, it’s all sitting in boxes. Crate and Barrel boxes. Thousands of them. Cube-shaped white boxes. If I was bored, I could use these to build a Crate and Barrel igloo in the living room.

When I really look back on my life since college, I’ve never had I well-thought-out house. It was usually clean and had some style, but it never became that ultimate bachelor pad every dude imagines he’ll achieve a week after he gets his first house key. You know, that beer-commercial pad where that wows the girl in the sexy black dress.

It’s Biblical wisdom to avoid things that will either be eaten by moths or stolen by thieves in the night. Like all real wisdom, this is true today. Furniture decays fast. A popped seam here, a broken frame there. You spill stuff on it. Technology decays too: you can spend $1000 on a Surround Sound for your “home theater,” and in a few short years you’ll be dragging those speakers onto your driveway for a yard sale. That’s your best case scenario—you own it long enough to get rid of it. That cool electronics stuff is the real reason why people break into your house. I feel like I saved lots of money over the past 6 years by just living simply.

Mother Teresa said it best: “Live simply so that others can simply live.”

It’s been 2 weeks and 1 day since I got married. People ask me, “How is married life?” So far, these are what stand out to me:

• Finally someone else turns off the lights. Like me, Candyce understands that you turn lights off when you leave a room. After all, energy isn’t cheap, and it’s terrible for the environment. This is why over the past 5 years, my daily routine is flipping off lights as treck back and forth through the house on any given day. This was not big deal in the old house because it was smaller, but my house now has a trillion light switches. I can honestly say I still don’t know what some of them do. But at least I got Candyce flipping switches on my team.

• I spend less time on the phone. When Candyce and I were just dating, we would call one another and give updates about where we were and where we were going. The goal was to find a bracket of time when we could hang out. As the day went on and it became clear that there wasn’t going to be anytime, the conversations shifted to telling one another about our day because that was our hangout time. These calls were nice and all, but a human is not meant to talk on the phone. We were meant to talk to one another. Also, people don’t call me anymore for random, silly things. I might have to downgrade my cell phone plan, and I’m utterly thrilled.

• I eat at home more. We both lived busy lives with her at school and me working and traveling, so most of the time the only time we spent together was during a meal. I mean, you have to eat, right? We’d meet for lunch sometimes, and almost always for dinner. Now that we finish our days together, it’s easier to eat at the house. This will end up being more healthy for both of us, and incidentally it’ll make my wallet happier. Paying two mortgages for 10 months makes you paranoid about spending more than you need to.

• I’m officially out of the dating game. You don’t realize it until you are out of the game, but pretty much everything you do as a single person is drivin by the desire to get the right mate. Today I went to the mall to pick up my re-sized wedding band, and I was amused by all of the dating energy floating through the building. It was a mad house of men shopping for women shopping for men. I’m not apart of that anymore.

• I see a new side of womanity. I like to make people laugh, and sometimes a waitress will think I’m flirting. If it has a place, I’ll bring up the fact I’m married. I never force it because that makes everyone feel weird. As soon as the girl finds out I’m not out to get them, it’s amazing how the conversation changes. It’s like I get to see a whole side of women I’ve never seen before: they aren’t threatened.

• I’m not pleasing the world anymore. People don’t like to think that they live to impress others, because this was a daily habit for most of us in high school. And nobody wants to go there again. But you can’t deny the reality that our world of people, ideas, and trends influence us. And most of us want to become a part of that world of influence. Now that I’m married, I am able to shut that ambition down when I want relax in my house with Candyce. (I have to be honest here: this might change if I get bored after relaxing too much.)

I’m getting married on Friday. I want to gush with emotion and anticipation, but there’s a serenity that’s come over me in the past few months that is unlike anything else. I just know what I need to do. I still share the lovely feelings for Candyce, but those feelings are now strengthened by a sense of duty and confidence. It’s a startling adventure to become a new man.

So how does it feel to know that I’m getting married in three days? The closest experience is when I knew I was a few days away from going on The Real World. I knew it was going to happen and it was going to be a big deal. I learned a lot about what I was committing to, and I tried to imagine what it would be like. I knew then, and I know now: my life is about to change. Lucky for me, a life with Candyce is a whole lot more exciting that season of reality television.

What’s beautiful about my life right now is that everything takes on a new meaning. This house that I type in will be me and Candyce’s first house together. How exciting is that? My parish isn’t just a place that I went to church in my 20s. It’s the place where I met—and got married to–the girl of my dreams. My favorite worship songs will now becomes the songs that narrate our wedding Mass.

The genuine souls who first greeted me when I moved to Arizona are going to be there to witness my lifelong vows to Candyce. Some of my buddies from Boy Scouts when I was 11 will be here when I’m 28 to be my groomsmen. My brothers and sisters are here because they unconditionally love me. That’s a feeling I cannot describe, to know that they care for me so much. I am going to make Mom and Dad proud. I am going to give them a new daughter. It’s like I’m entering a whole new realm of beauty on earth.

My buddy Stephen spontaneously flew into Phoenix earlier this week to hike the Grand Canyon with his girlfriend’s family. We met up at Four Peaks at one in the morning after his flight got in. He slept for a few hours at my house and drove out of the city before dawn.

We met up tonight for a few hours before his flight took off back to Atlanta. We had dinner at Chelsey’s Kitchen on the patio and caught up on how our lives are coming around. The orange blossoms of Arcadia were in bloom, so everything smelled beautiful. That’s gotta be the most intoxicating aroma on the planet. You can get high just walking through a parking lot.

It’s been ten years since Stephen and I left Towns County High School for college, and we’ve both done so much since then. We really shot out of that town like a pebble out of a sling shot. Once we left the town limits, there was no turning back.

He’s lived in Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tahoe, and now Atlanta again. I lived in Los Angeles, Atlanta, New Orleans, New York, and now Phoenix. He’s traveled the country at least 20 times. I’ve traved to 230+ destinations in America. Although I spend more time in an airplane, he’s done a lot more high-altitude adventure. He’s backpacked all over the West. He’s snowboarded down many, many mountains.

I was the first to paddle a surf board into the Pacific (back in 1997), but Stephen has proven to be a more committed and talented surfer. One thing that stays the same is how much each of us love to ride bicycles. He does the more hardcore speed biking. I prefer the mountain bike that lets me explore the back alleys of cities. I’ve settled into a steady job where I get to be creative and productive. Stephen has skipped from job to job, whatever allowed him to live out the adventures he desired.

Both of us first saw our adventurous spirit when we were in Boy Scouts. I was 12 and he weas 11. Most boys that age want some adventure, but they are confined to their dullness of a neighborhood. They end up getting kicks out of being good at a video game or looking at dirty magazines. The two of us explored the east Coast in that Scout van with the rest of the guys in the troop. Over the years we were in Scouts, we spent at least a 100 nights out in the woods, braving the elements.

To this day, I am always thankful for these things: fresh water, enough food to not be hungry, and a dry shelter. I know what it’s like to lay in a wet sleeping bag through 8 hours of darkness. I’ve done it many, many nights. So it doesn’t matter how bad my day gets as an adult, I am still thankful to slide into a warm, dry bed.

So what if bottled water costs too much—at least it’s there, icy cold whenever you want to pay $2 at Circle K. When you are on the top of a mountain and only have ½ a cup of water for you and your tentmate for 2 days, now that sucks. That night I put four wood stakes in the ground and draped my plastic poncho over it like a sunken canopy. I stuffed the hood into a water bottled to serve as a funnel. I surrounded the bottle with rocks, and then went to bed praying for rain. I woke up the next morning to a full bottle of water. That was one of the best mornings of my life.

Candyce flew in from San Diego the same time Stephen was flying back to Atlanta. It’s so much easier to be at the airport when I have nowhere to go. It’s actually kind of fun. You get to people watch and enjoy the action. I was happy to see Stephen off and drive home with Candyce. I know that she and I won’t be able to continue the pace of adventure that I’ve had in the 10 years since I’ve graduated high school. But I do know that just being together is an adventure. Our life will be good together.