I grew up in Orange County, CA. When I was a little girl, I hated my name. I wanted to be called Victoria—something striking and feminine. I loathed that there were boys called by the same name I was.
In kindergarten, they called me “little teacher” as I made my way around the classroom after finishing my work, helping others to finish theirs. My teacher would comment on how helpful I was. I was more impatient than helpful, but I would never tell her that. I couldn’t understand why it was taking so long for everyone to do these things and I was ready to move on with it.
I went to spelling bees and speech meets; I recited poems and won ribbons. My mother told me I had to learn to play two instruments. One of them had to be the piano. For the other, I had a choice: the violin or the harp. I chose the harp because I knew we could never afford one and it was too big for her to make me carry it around. I didn’t learn to read music as fast as I thought I should so I quit. I was not athletic but I was smart and dreamed of going to law school at Harvard. I suppose I was as on my way as one can be at 13 years old when my mother died suddenly from cancer, my world turned upside down, and I took everyone around me down with it.
I went from over achieving honor student with perfect attendance to drug addict in 18 months. The road from there to where I am now was long. I must have missed the turn for college because I never got around to that the way I meant to. I had been working since I was 14 and figured my best chance at anything was to get a foot in the door and work my way up, prove to people that I could do it, and earn it. By the time I turned 21, I’d been a hostess, a cook at a cheese steak shop, a waitress, a sales rep, a bookkeeper, a credit risk analyst, and an internal auditor for the now defunct Federal Office of Thrift Supervision. At 22, I decided to cash out my 401K and move across the country to Northampton, MA. I was going to “write, paint, and get by.” I tried to do that, but I couldn’t shut off my internal achiever and, next thing you know I had gone from being the waitress with the worst shifts at a local restaurant to its general manager. Until I was nearly 27, I ran from everything using drugs and alcohol as my escape; trying to numb the loss of my mother and hide my state from my father. In 2005, I returned from Northampton, got sober, and since, I’ve been a chair rental girl, an HR director, the assistant to creative director, an author, maid, a copy writer, content manager, and now the Executive Director of a Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. My work today is the second best thing in my life.
Somewhere along this journey of rediscovering life, I discovered I love running. I guess I could have figured that out in high school but I failed gym 6 times (which is REALLY, REALLY hard to do.)
In a way, I guess you could say it was running that brought Mark and I together, or it was computers. I think it was kismet. I dismissed the voice inside of me that said (verbatim) “Wait, he’s supposed to be with me” the first time I saw him as insane and never thought a thing of it from that moment until I saw him on May 19, 2012.
I’m that girl; I’ve been dreaming of my wedding for as long as I can remember. As long as I’ve been dreaming, the “man of my dreams” has never had a particular appearance but he has always had a particular character. He is kind, compassionate, emotionally generous, thoughtful, and giving. He has a strong sense of justice and integrity. He believes your word needs to mean something because it is the only thing you really have. He loves the underdog and believes we can make the world a better place by being better people. Imagine my surprise when I met Mark and learned the man of my dreams also happens to be incredibly handsome.
When Mark came to fix my computer and we sat talking late into the night, I suddenly understood what my aunt Verna had always said to me about needing to become the person I wanted to attract. It took a really long, meandering path for me to become who I am and I thank the stars every day for each moment that brought me to now and every stepping stone I thought was a stumbling block that brought me to Mark.
I wish my mom could meet him.
My dad adores him.