Why I Was Destined To Marry A "W" (or The Power of A Nickname)

“I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floatin’ around accidental-like on a breeze. But I, I think maybe it’s both.”

— Forrest Gump

Photo by Paul Pastourmatzis on Unsplash.

“TP.”

“Popilchuk? No.”

“TS.”

“Sawyer? C’mon!”

It was another boring English 10 class. The fresh-out-of-college long-term substitute teacher (who had no idea how to deal with the usual shenanigans students put subs through) was late. (Probably drinking her fourth cup of coffee and steeling herself for her next period—our class was pretty horrible to her. Poor Ms. S.)

My closest friends and I had set up camp in a huddle of desks along one wall. And since Ms. S. wasn’t available to torment just yet, they were teasing-slash-comforting me as only friends-who-know-too-much-about-you can.

You see, the boy I had a long-time crush on was unable to attend our Youth Group’s Valentine banquet, so they were playing a little game to see if they could figure out who would be a suitable date for me. Despite my complete lack of confidence where boys were concerned, I was playing along. (Sort of.)

The game was this: look around and pair my first initial with the last initial of the males in the room. A little round of just-a-date’s-not-good-enough-let’s-see-if-your-names-would-work
-if-you-got-married to break up the afternoon.

Of course, because we were, after all, teenagers, and my friends seemed to enjoy getting a rise out of me more so than was healthy, they were putting my initial with all the boys I would be least likely to want to accompany me—or vice-versa.

“T.L.,” said Pam.

“I’m not Chris’s type.”

“T.C.”

“C’mon, guys, that’s enough.”

Finally, they stumped me.

“T.W.,” said Cara.

I peered around the room. I knew the first and last names of everyone in that class, and the middle names of some, but I could not, for the life of me, think of the person to whom they were referring.

“Are you guys just making this up, now?”

“No, T.W.,” Cara chirped again.

I could see realization dawning on the faces of my other two tormentors, so I knew that this must be a real person. I looked around the room again. Still nothing came to me.

Just then, the teacher called the class to order. We faced forward in our desks and paid attention (as much as one ever pays attention to a substitute teacher).

In actuality, I was doing a mental role call in my brain of every person in the room, and some that weren’t. Finally it hit me like a paint pellet right between the eyes.

“Garrett Wilson?!”* I exclaimed in a hyperventilating whisper, leaning toward my friends. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Is there a problem, Miss H?” came Ms. S’s imperious voice from the front of the room.

“Uh, no,” I mumbled, to the titters of my friends. Sheer glee filled their eyes and heat rose up my neck and into my face.

I spent the rest of the lecture alternately glaring at them and fearfully glancing across the room at Garrett, afraid he somehow knew about the terrible game my friends had been playing.

(Side:

Just in case Garrett should ever find this blog through a random Google search or something, I just want to say: the only bad part about this was that you really weren’t my type. Really not. As I am sure you would agree that I wasn’t yours. And possibly, just maybe, I might have thought you were a bit immature in Grade 10. And my friends, if asked in the right conditions—under a full moon with no less than a pack of wolves surrounding them and threatening them with certain death if they told an untruth—might have agreed with me. In the years since then, I have only seen you a few times, but I am sure you have turned into a delightful man, as I know your mom and I’ve always liked her, and thank goodness we don’t stay at the maturity level we are at in Grade 10, eh? For both our sakes’.

End side)

Well, this wasn’t enough. They [my so-called friends-turned-torture-masters] couldn’t leave well enough alone. They decided, after this delightfully humorous episode (on their part, at least), that my nickname should henceforth be “T.W.”. Apparently the fifteen or so other nicknames I had already collected that year weren’t enough.

(For someone as seemingly un-popular and socially inept as I was, my friends sure thought I deserved a lot of nicknames. Maybe my real name is too hard to say. Or remember. Or something. More likely, they liked seeing my reaction every time they thought of a new one.)

Later on that night, we were at a youth group event at our church, and Cara was enthusiastically regaling my second cousin Laura with the Tale of Talena’s Torture.

She had just gotten to the part where they had decided to call me T.W. from now on when Laura piped up with “What’s the w for, Windstick?”

To this day, I’ll never know why she said that. But the reign of T.W. Windstick had begun. (The nickname, I mean. Not my reign—or I would have banished it immediately.)

An Unlikely Prophecy

Much to my chagrin, T.W. Windstick became one of my more commonly-used nicknames.

To my relief, most people shortened it only to T.W., and as long as they didn’t ask where it started, I was fine. (I think Cara was the only one who insisted on adding the Windstick until we lost contact sometime after high school.)

With a nickname like that, you would think that it would die off at graduation. But apparently, that little episode in English 10 was the foreshadowing of things to come. (I wonder if we were studying the parts of a story that day?)

My first serious boyfriend was Robert* Wadsack. By serious, I mean that we dated for longer than three weeks, and before we broke up, the word marriage had crossed our lips—probably more enthusiastically over his than mine, as I was only eighteen, and he was twenty-six.

(My dad probably would have given me stronger lectures about the age gap, if only he hadn’t also been dating a twenty-six-year-old at the time.)

At any rate, I had only met him once at a conference, and after meeting him again after exchanging phone calls for six months, I realized I was not ready for the type of relationship which he was (Duh! I had just graduated!), so we broke up.

(Thank goodness. I really can’t imagine having the moniker Wadsack my entire life. Although the last time I spoke with him, he had found some other lady who had willingly taken it on, and I am so happy for them.)

My next brush with the letter W got me closer: I found Mr. Wright. After dating for six months, D and I actually got engaged. It looked like the fulfillment of the T.W. prophecy was close at hand. However, after some rough times, and some serious soul-searching, we also broke up.

That’s a really long story I don’t want to get into, but it looks like destiny didn’t plan for me to be Mrs. Wright.

And then Jason.

The Prophecy Fulfilled

Jason had been on the perimeter of my vision since Grade 10. (How close to the same time as the Night of the T.W. Windstick, I don’t know.) Sometimes so far on the periphery that I couldn’t see him at all. But we did have one date in that year.

I had asked him out—I don’t think he had really even noticed me before. He is, after all, four years older, and had spent the majority of time that I had been part of his church’s youth group away at college and summer jobs and all that.

We went to a movie (The Lion King). It’s safe to say that the night left quite an impression on me—not only because the movie became my next hyper-fixation, but because of what I wrote in my journal:

Now Jason. There’s an open door that I am not sure if I will ever go through. He’s a nice guy, but I don’t know if he would ever want to date me.

Then we barely spoke for the next five years.

To make a long story a little shorter, we got to know each other when I accompanied him on his third trip to India in 1997. After developing our friendship for a year and a half, we were engaged. And a few months later, T.W. became a nickname no longer. It was my monogram for life.

After all, it was destiny.

*Garrett’s surname has been changed to semi-protect the innocent. And, after having reconnected with him, his wife, and their adorable newborn at our twenty-five-year class reunion, he did turn out to be a delightful man.

**Robert was not his real name.

Two crazy kids in love for life.