Last year
this
entry
marked a huge milestone in my life as I walked
Central Park alone looking back in awe of all my 20s
were...
...this year I
walked the park with someone I couldn't have imagined
in a lifetime existed, looking ahead, in awe of
all my 30s will be. I am literally, figuratively, and
in every aspect I've ever known...on top of the
world.
Don't
bother searching for other times in this
Journey when things aligned so
beautifully, because you won't find it.
I am in the midst of the most
incredible 3 weeks of my life and there
simply aren't enough hours in the day to
appreciate them.
I have
danced around the subject of what Donna
means to me in an attempt to make sure
this website is not a friend or family
member's first hearing of it. The majority
of you however, knew the second you read
the "Donna Mo Hum" entry. This is as
other-worldly as I've known a connection
to be.
Just
think of what walls it had to tear down! I
have never been more focused on career
than this trip to NY and had zero interest
in dealing with someone else's shit. I've
also been quite publically married and
divorced TWICE before 30. Although I
consider Jessica a success story
it's still not something I take
lightly. My "checklist", so to speak, was
so long and specific I knew damn well it
would be quite some time before anyone
came close to making me jump.
Donna
takes it a step further. Anti-marriage,
anti-kids, career oriented, doesn't need a
man, will be a free-spirit to her dying
day and wanted NOTHING to do with me when
we met. Couldn't have had more walls and
was happy to wave at me from the window
on the wall. I know this is the
start of many romantic comedies, but it
was a bit much...
So when she called
back the next day I just came out and said it:
"Either really talk to me about who you
really are, or I have to move on. My life is
just too damn good to be sucked into trying to change
someone's life."
She jumped
and literally blew me away. As the days tuned
into 12 hour talk-fests even someone as
gunshy as me, who had every reason to not
take focus away from his career at that
moment or even CONTEMPLATE marriage
could, not, be, lieve how uncanny our
connection was. I truly felt I had known
her my entire life by Day 3. We finished each
other's sentences (that's quite a feat when
you grew up in different countries), and
oftentimes shook our heads as we looked at
each other thinking: "How the hell?"
She not only blew past my checklist, she
added new boxes. Things I never fathomed
I would find in someone else. And she
felt exactly the same way.
By the end of the
weekend we knew without a doubt that this did not end
when I got on a plane back to LA. Either
I was livin' in NY or she was movin' to LA,
CBS held the keys to that fate.
That's not to say
there weren't a few snags here and there. The biggest
problem we faced was the fact that we were on a
conveyor belt that ENDED on October 10th. We had
a tremendous amount of fears, qualms, baggage -
whatever you want to call it about jumping so
quickly...but we didn't have much of a choice. We
lived in seperate cities and didn't have the luxury to
take it slow, so we packed every single day with as
much communication as humanly possible.
My
biggest hurdle by FAR was that I have
really been burned in the past and
remember those patterns vividly.
Any change in demeanor on her part would
trigger a flashback of the myriad of
relationships I've been in and I would
start bracing myself for the worst. That
has been so hard for me. Trusting someone
so quickly is such a leap of faith
when you've really been hurt.
Within
a week Donna brought up "rings" and on the
29th we found a cool little shop in the
East Village and bought each other $14
silver rings. Call it whatever you'd like,
we know what they are. And no matter how
rich and famous we get - we'll continue to
wear those $14 rings...
A couple of you
caught that in the last video. Chad however did not
and noticed right around picture 2:
This is one of those "click
on me I'm much bigger and you can scroll me"
pics...
I
As someone who
cares about me, seein' me with a 3rd ring not knowing
all we had gone through can tend to come as a shock.
He literally froze and said: "I'm afraid of taking the
camera away from my face..." as we both just
CRACKED up. He laughed, stopped shooting, and
hugged us both. Wonderful moment.
So simply put,
there was no better way in my mind to express how much
this incredible woman meant to me, than to go back to
Central Park a year later and share it with her.
I have
zero reservations proclaiming to the world
how precious she is to me. The thought of
leaving her (even for 2 weeks) tomorrow is
just heartbreaking. Amazing because a
couple weeks ago I didn't even know
her.
It of
course sets up that "movie moment of
truth"...will she get on the plane in 2
weeks? Do you have faith? Can you really
connect with someone so deeply in a matter
of days that they're willing to give
everything up and just jump? Considering
that 28 years of her life was spent
convincing herself she would never make
such a jump?
