Document: WM-018 P. Webb
Category: Life 2017.10.29
How I met my wife
Abstract
Somehow, I got lucky
Body
I was your typical (angsty) teenager. Like most people, I was trying
to find my voice, trying to find what made me unique, and how I could
use that to become popularā¦needless to say I failed. Once, *for some
reason*, I decided to ask one of the most popular girls in school on
a date, instead of my actual crush (who was friends with her).
Thatās a dumb story for another day.
1. Classface
In 2002, 14 was my age when a friend of mine called (remember when
this happened?) to pester me about joining an "exciting" new
social network called, Classface. Iāll paraphrase the
conversation here:
Cleo: OMG Paul, you need to join this site. Itās hella dope.
Me: Uh-huh. What site?
Cleo: Itās called Classface and--
Me: (mumbling) That sounds dumb.
Cleo: --you get to meet people from around the world!
Me: I donāt even like people near me, why the hell would I
like people far away?
Cleo: JUST JOIN IT NIGGA.
With a heavy sigh I typed www.classface.com[1] into Internet
Explorer (yes, seriously) and was greeted with basic, sparse web
design reminiscent of the era.
Back then, no one thought about the need for private profiles.
After all, wouldnāt you want people to find you? I spent a
couple minutes looking at random profiles until I saw a face that
took me aback. Here was this girl from Phenix City, Alabama (what
the hell is "Phenix", I thought at the time, shouldnāt it be
"Phoenix"?) and she had such a genuinely happy smile. "Keisha
Page", I thought to myself, "I like that name". She was fiiiiine
as hell too! I hovered over whatever button to get to the next
random profile while having an internal discussion with myself.
Lame Voice: Wowee, who the hell is THAT?
Cooler Voice: Your future girl bro!
Lame Voice: Nah, thatād never happen.
Cooler Voice: Not with that attitude! Just say hi.
Lame Voice: Really? No way man, Iām nervous.
Cooler Voice: You canāt be a bitch all your life. You canāt even
tell Shawna you like her, you can at least tell a
girl who lives THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY that she
looks cute. She realize you a scrub? Delete
your account!
And so, thatās what I did! I scoured her profile for an opener and
saw that she was a fan of Degrassi (the Drake era). I believe I
wrote something along the lines of:
Hey, I just joined this site and I just happened to find your
page. I wanted to let you know that you have a pretty smile
anyhoo did you see what Skinner did to Marco last week? What a
bum, yeah, Jimmy shouldāve said something to him.
(For those who donāt know, Drakeās character was named Jimmy on
the show.)
I anxiously awaited her reply and probably played Road Rash on a
Shockwave site to pass the time. To my delight, she thanked me and
our friendship flourished thanks to our shared interests. Iād like
to take a timeout to publicly thank Drake[2], Andrea Lewis[3] (my
favorite person on the show), and everyone else from Degrassi for
making this possible.
Classface eventually became a lame place to be and it was their
fault. They had the terrible idea to redesign the site but with
no UX sense. No one knew where to go to do things you could do in
the original version and I believe they messed the site up more
trying to fix it. So, everyone moved to Myspace.
2. Myspace
It was during this time that Keisha gave me her phone number
(holla!) and I heard her Southern accent for the first time and we
would talk for hours about how wack our parents were, dreams for
the future, and everything in-between.
Years later, I would reminisce about those conversations and
create music. Hereās a sampling of those tracks:
[4][5]
Dusty Stars is from Music from the Love Lounge, Vol. 01[6] (this
cuts off early for some reason, probably data corruption) and
Remember When is from Vol. 02[7]. I sometimes find music a
better conduit to express my thoughts than simply talking.
Keisha and I got busy with our own lives and communicated less but
I would check her profile every couple months to see what was new.
At some point, I saw she was in a relationship with a guy I
instantly disliked and partly because I was being a hater. From
where I sat, thousands of miles away, it seemed like he wasnāt
treating her right and her journal posts confirmed my suspicions.
When she uploaded a picture of herself with a baby on a beach, my
unspoken hopes were smashed.
Welp.
3. Facebook
Like with Classface, Myspace became lame and so everyone jumped to
Facebook. Keisha and I continued our random check-ins over the
years but it wasnāt until October 2011 that we reconnected. Her
marriage to that terrible guy was over for quite some time but I
was just happy to converse as a friend.
The following month, we became closer than I ever expected (or
hoped) and I had the bright idea to try and visit her for
Thanksgiving. She thought it was a fantastic idea so I begged my
mom to buy me roundtrip tickets to Jacksonville, FLā¦my mom is a
bit paranoid. Catfishing, abduction, and other crazy things happen
all the time so she wasnāt super keen about the idea at first. She
made me promise to text her as soon as I landed (I forgot to do so
until the next morning and got a rather disgruntled phone call,
haha). Keisha and I were using Skype at this point and I was one
thousand per cent sure she was real. š
4. Florida
When Keisha greeted me at the airport, it was surreal. We both had
goofy grins on our faces and then hugged. Our immediate,
simultaneous remarks were: "OMG youāre so tall/short!". LOL
Luckily, her siblings and daughter liked me and we had a fun week
full of jokes (you gotta come prepared with some zingers āround
these folks), fun, and of courseā¦Thanksgiving. š
In fact, it was Thanksgiving Day that I asked/confirmed our
relationship status. Pro tip: if youāre forgetful of dates like
I am, make sure anniversaries are on a date you know you wonāt
forget. BWAHAHAHA!
Yāknow those movies where a main character departs for a flight
and the other main character is super sad with tears in their eyes
but the first character wants to be strong for the second and
tries really hard to keep it together? Yeah, that was us when it
was time for me to head back to Boston. As soon as I turned away
from Keisha and entered the airport, I was
boo-hoo-Academy-Award-winning-actor-Viola-Davis crying. My. Tears.
Were. Fugly. I looked like my mom AND dad took turns beating my
ass for stealing cookies and smudging a wall they just painted
after mooning the elderly Polish woman next door. It was bad man.
My chest hurt.
Some of my friends at the time thought I was crazy to date someone
on the other side of the country, and for a couple years at that!
Keisha and I would visit each other at least twice a year for
physical reminders of why we were together and spoke/texted nearly
every day and that nourished our emotional and mental needs.
5. Massachusetts
With our generation, Iāve seen and continue to see posts on social
media where people are hella frustrated about relationsĢ¶hĢ¶iĢ¶pĢ¶shits
they get into. The ratio of disappointment appears to be balanced.
I believe 90% of issues could be solved with communication. Notice
I didnāt prefix the word "more". I donāt think people communicate
at all anymore. Millenials would rather swipe left/right and
take pics or make statuses for likes that donāt matter instead of
communicating for love that does matterā¦ooh, thatād make a great
post in of itself.
Even though Keisha and I knew each other for 10 years, we still
had to learn how to live together. I was a guy in a two-bedroom
apartment with a long-distance girlfriend and when she moved in, I
suddenly had a three-year-old stepdaughter and couldnāt fucking
swear all the time. And furniture. Oh my gawd, Keisha had so
much furniture. I had a deskā¦and a sad excuse for a bed. During
Keishaās first night living in Massachusetts, a speeding driver
knocked off the sideview mirror from her parked car (pro tip:
donāt live on Main Street, side streets are better).
I found that (gasp) Keisha could irritate me sometimes! I
irritated her all the time! There was a period in the first year
where everything couldāve gone up in smoke but we communicated.
My default way of dealing with things at the time was to shut down
and stew, have mock debates in my head. Little did I know, Keisha
does that on a regular basis and always had an immediate response
to everything I could possibly say. Hoo boy, Iām a pro now but
that was not a fun time.
Compromise was something else I had to learn. I was resistant at
first but when faced with the prospect of losing her and an
adorable little girl who now saw me as "daddy" instead of "Paul",
I quickly learned to adjust. Iām not a perfect guy today, but I am
perfect for my family (or damn close to it). Donāt hashtag,
retweet, or share "relationship goals"ā¦just learn how to
compromise, communicate, and ensure your partner is on the same
page. Remember when your parents made you eat nasty things with
dinner? I would mix the nasty things with food I did like to get
them out the way so I could enjoy the rest of my meal. The same
thing applies to relationships; do the hard stuff now so you can
enjoy growing together later.
6. The Future
I proposed to Keisha on Easter, earlier this year. Remember my pro
tip from earlier? BWAHAHAHA!
And now? Weāre married! As far as whatās nextā¦growth. Our focus is
creating an environment where our kids are nurtured, growing, and
happy. That means becoming homeowners so we REALLY own our own
space, and helping each other thrive in our fields.
Keisha went from being a sailor in the Navy, waking up at the
bootycrack of dawn to work out, have 24-hour shifts for some thing
or other (idk, Iām a civilian) to becoming a stay-at-home-mom
because we donāt trust anyone with our toddler until he learns how
to speak. Weāve been spooked by online videos of "caretakers"
smacking babies in the face and parents wondering why their child
has a fear of pillows. NOPE. šš¾
Since our sonās been born, Keisha has garnered a reputation in mom
groups as THE go-to person when you want a custom designed shirt,
poofy skirts, onesies, booties, and so on. Iāve designed logos for
her and provided my designer-y expertise on how to deal with
clients and sheās flourishing!
Iām a simple man, I just want world domination.
Itās amazing that two 14-year-old kids would connect on social
media in 2002, only to marry each other 15 years later. Paul Webb
and Lakeisha Page met onlineā¦Webb and Page met on a webpage.
WebbPage. See? Thatās some high-quality movie shit. šø
Extra
This may sound completely fabricated to you, dear reader, but
Keisha and I lived in the same city and our fathers were
stationed at the same military base at the same time.
Clarksville, Tennessee was the city, Fort Campbell was the
military base, 1994-1997 was the time. Fort Campbell had "family
days" and there would be lots of kids playing together. I donāt
remember any of the kids I saw/played with but itās quite possible
that weāve seen each other back then.
How weird is that?
P.S.
During one of Keishaās early visits to Massachusetts, I asked her
to appear on that yearās release of Music from the Love Lounge.
Itās a fitting end to a post like this, check it out (beats by
me)! šø
[8]
P.P.S
Hereās my wifeās post[9] about how we met! Did you know that she
found her dress at a thrift store and completely redesigned it?
Sheās craftier than a mofo!
P.P.P.S
