This is the story of how CarmeNate came to be. Carmen's account is in this font, and Nate's commentary is in this font. It's a great story we've both told many times. Now it's documented, but it's missing the hand gestures and physical punctuation you get when hearing it in person. I can make any story a long one though, so prepare yourself.
Before the Beginning
I have to go back to the mid 90s when we were just teenagers... back in the Nite Owl days, where we all partied more in the parking lot than we did inside the venue. I was going to Milton High School, in Milton (obviously) and he was at Woodham in Pensacola. We may have never met, had it not been for the Nite Owl. That magnificent place was where a lot of social circles like mine were formed. That's where a lot of kids our age got to see awesome punk shows long before we were 'of age' enough for the 'real clubs' in town. This place was an all ages venue until 2am, when they kicked out all the kids to keep the party going as a bottle club.
Tangent about bottle clubs: They're a weird concept to me. Obviously I was too young to experience one at the time, and I've never felt the need to go to one as an adult, so I only know what I've been told about them. You bring your own alcohol, and they serve you from your own supply. This way, the establishment is not breaking the law by selling alcohol after last call or without a liquor license. Now I hear the city is trying to close the last one we have left. I don't think it should go though.
We didn't really know each other early on though. Our social circles crossed paths sometimes, but I was with someone, and he was with someone else. It took a long time to realize the one I was with was never going to appreciate me. The fact that I had to keep our relationship a secret for the first six months should have been a huge red flag, but I was young, dumb, and lonely. I let my low self esteem keep me in a very unequal relationship for far too long... I had been in a fairly long-running (long for that age group) relationship with a girl I had started dating sophomore year of high school, and it lasted even a few years after graduation. I had known Carmen for a while through social circles at music shows and camping events.
She had gotten married to my friend Kyle, who I knew from high school. We all hung out pretty regularly along with her cousin Joey occasionally and Sam, one of her best friends, who I also knew pretty well from high school. We had many friends in common and very similar interests; I really enjoyed hanging out with her and loved her wit and views... Awww shucks, the feeling was and is mutual.
Eventually it became clear my relationship with Amy began well but slowly grew toxic; we broke up, tried again and went separate ways. So, I had a break from dating, and since my ex and I still hung out with the same people, I decided to spend that time meeting new people and being social... Similar story on my end, but mine had apparently moved on before notifying me; luckily Joey was brave enough to speak up about it when he discovered. We broke up, tried again, and went separate ways in the spring of '98.
Tangent on the Oxford Comma: I prefer it, and Nate does not. <shrug> I think it removes confusion, and it makes a sentence look better. We agree to disagree.
<rolling eyes> During those years leading up to the end of the century, I was realizing the way I had been living was not healthy; I needed to make some changes. I had been going to college for music and was taking on too many hours. Working hard and playing harder, I burnt out, dropped out and had to rethink everything... I immediately jumped into a rebound relationship with a friend from work in a completely different social circle. That lasted several months before we split for lack of shared interests, and then I started partying every weekend with some single girlfriends. They would dress me up and take me to Seville on Thursday nights (AKA: Swordfight Night) when they'd let in 18 and up with black Xs on our hands.
It wasn't until 1999 that we were both available to start considering each other. At this point, I had already been married to and divorced from Kyle, went through my rebound guy (Dietary Jerry), and settled into my very own apartment to myself at Maison De Ville on 9th Avenue... good times. It was the only time in my life I lived completely on my own. One glorious year of figuring shit out on my own: May 1998 to May 1999. Joey, more like a brother than my cousin, was an enormous help through that because he was always there to listen to me, eat my food, and offer advice.
Sometimes it's tough when friends split up, and I found myself still wanting to spend time with both Kyle and Carmen after their divorce. I would stop by Maison De Ville occasionally to pay her a visit. Many other friends lived in the same apartments at the time and we had a lot of fun. After realizing I was making a lot of questionable decisions as a single female underage drinker, I started to slow down and seek out old friends. I had also agreed to move in with a friend at the end of my lease to save money and have someone around the house.
At some point in Spring of '99, I ended up at Calloway Landing for the day with some friends, one of which was Nate. It was such a great day laughing with old friends and being in the woods. It was exactly what I needed. Over the next few weeks, we started hanging out more. One night, after telling yet another story about some adventure with Nate, Joey said, "You know he's into you, right?" I blushed, blustered, and denied it, but it was too late. The seed was planted. Was he into me? I mean, any platonic friend would drive me and my 4 foot iguana to the bluffs to sit and talk for hours about nothing and everything, right? Maybe he was into me.
Tangent on Calloway Landing: It's a place on Big Coldwater Creek. Since we were teens, many camping wild weekends were spent there. It's not a campground, but it's a place we would camp. It's a place at the end of some fire lane in the woods. We would park our cars and hike a good half mile or so at least before setting up camp somewhere on the river. Some people call it Keeokee, but that's the name of a gathering that used to happen there. I've always know the place as Calloway Landing.
The Beginning
After the next adventure, he was dropping me off at my place. He always wanted to walk me inside, and I appreciated it after having come home to an open apartment door months ago. This time though, he asked if he could kiss me. I was so shocked and pleased that he would actually ask me before just going in for it. Of course I said yes as I leaned in for it. While making out on my couch, he mentioned going to my bedroom, and I put on the brakes.
Tangent about the open door: It was left by a maintenance person who had to access my apartment during the day while I was at work. He had mistakenly left the door unlocked and slightly ajar for anyone to go inside AND I found a floater in my toilet with no paper. It was creepy and gross.
I remember telling him he had to woo me first. I needed a proper date, and before that date could even happen, he had a task: tell Kyle his intentions. I explained this was not for getting my ex-husband's permission. This was because I wanted to date someone who was proud to date me, and declaring it to Kyle was the most bold 'scream it from the rooftop' type of gesture I could imagine on the spot. Once he did that, we could make plans. He understood, and we ended the night there.
Kyle was a good friend and you can imagine that calling him to discuss dating his ex wife would be very awkward. It was. I tend to procrastinate on such social confrontations anyway but in this case, there was no hesitation, and I had already picked up the phone and was talking with him before I absorbed what I was faced with. I completely expected an uncomfortable reaction such as, "OK, so why are you telling me?"... or even worse, complete silence. Instead, he was very friendly and said, "OK, man; thanks for telling me." The very next day, he called me at work to tell me he had already talked to Kyle, "...so, Friday night then?"
He was definitely checking all my boxes. We made plans to go on a date Friday night, and he didn't even care that I was moving Saturday, so I didn't want to be out late. On April 30, we went on our first proper date. We did dinner and a movie: Crapplebee's and Matrix. Our palates were not as developed yet, so the restaurant choice was good enough, but the conversation was riveting. Carmen and I had always connected and I felt very comfortable around her. I loved that she is no-drama, very practical but still loves to live and enjoy life. He was so interested in me and what I had to say. I was so interested in him and what he had to say. The movie was pretty mind blowing stuff at the time, so it was the subject of a lively debate on the walk back to my apartment. It was a magical night.
The very next day, I moved into a bigger apartment in the same complex. My Mom was there helping me, and he showed up with a toolbox and a strong back. She was impressed with his manners and eagerness to help; he was such a stark contrast to Kyle she was almost giddy by the end of the day. Nate and I made a great team while putting up my artwork and shelves as I directed him where I wanted things to go. The teamwork that day was something I had never really experienced, and it made me so incredibly fucking happy it's hard to describe. She is really into art and music in the form of vinyl; we both are, but she had already collected a lot of it at that point. Her background with music was considerably different from mine, but we did have a lot of common tastes from watching local and regional music at the same venues. She was brought up on Jimmy Buffett, Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, etc. I was brought up listening to my parents' 80s soft rock and had ventured into punk, metal and some early electronica/industrial music; I had a lot to learn. So did I.
We had similar interests and such completely different backgrounds it seemed like we'd never run out of conversation topics. We had several more proper dates, and I fell hard and fast for him. Music and the love of the outdoors were huge connections for us. She was kind, thoughtful and focused; it didn't take long at all before she was the person I wanted to be with every day.
21st Birthday
We had been pretty inseparable for the month and a half we had been dating when my 21st birthday happened. I had big plans for the big night. I had booked a hotel room within walking distance to a couple bars: Chan's (back when it was at University Mall) and Coconuts. Nate had picked me up, and we went to the hotel to check in and get ready. About 20 minutes later, he looked at me and said, "I don't feel good. I have to go." He looked real pale, and he just left. It was very abrupt and poorly timed. Here I was ready to go out for my first night of legal drinking, and he just ditched me. I was pretty depressed when I called Joey and told him I thought I just got dumped. I had no transportation and no one to drink with me. He immediately dropped what he was doing to get me and go to the Trail. I had a couple birthday shots and drinks, but it just wasn't fun. Joey tried, but I just couldn't get my mind off of it... Why did he just leave like that? Yeah, I did that. Admittedly not my best move.
The next day, he came to my place to explain that he just had really bad stomach cramps. He apologized and wanted to make it up to me. I wasn't completely convinced, but I let him take me to a movie. He was looking kind of pale, and he wasn't really engaging in the conversation like normal. During the movie, he was sweating bullets, and he was white-knuckling the seat. I didn't know what to think, but he was obviously not comfortable. I told him it was time to go, and we left in the middle of the movie. He said his stomach was bothering him, but I could tell he didn't want to disappoint me again. I made him stop to pick up some Pepto Bismol before taking me back to my place. He took some and puked it up about 10 minutes later.
At this point, I knew I needed to take him to the hospital. We went to Sacred Heart, and this was while they were remodeling the ER, so Triage was in a trailer in the parking lot. I worked in their Surgery department, so the triage nurse recognized me. "He doesn't look like he can wait that long, and it's going to be a while." This was his subtle way of telling me to go to West Florida Hospital. By this time, I was driving Nate in his car because he couldn't concentrate enough to drive. We arrived at WFH, and he was taken in within 15 minutes of walking in the front door. The triage nurse could see he was in some serious pain. I had to call his parents, and I had only met them briefly once before this. It was an awkward phone call I wasn't looking forward to placing, but it was actually a lot easier than I imagined. They were there shortly after he was taken to the back.
Pretty quickly we got the diagnosis: appendicitis. The surgery was scheduled for the following morning. So, Nate is passed out in the hospital bed; his concerned parents who I've only met once are sitting across from me, and I'm stuck there with no transportation of my own. I know I could have cabbed it home, but I also didn't want to leave Nate until they had him in a room. We were small talking to kill the silence, and I mentioned my Grandparents' names. They recognized the names, and that small talk grew into a conversation that changed our fledgling relationship into something much more.
Way before the Beginning
Paraphrasing that conversation and other accounts I've heard since, I'll tell you the story of how our families already knew each other long before we ever existed. One day in the early 60s, my grandma's vehicle broke down as she was driving with my very young mom and uncles. She walked to the closest door and knocked on it. A woman answered the door, and after some discussion, she was watching the kids while my grandparents dealt with the lame vehicle situation. <shrug> You could just do things like that back then, I guess. She just left them with a complete random stranger to take care of this other situation, and it was a non-issue.
Anyhow, the strange woman, her husband, my grandparents, and all their kids became friends. Well, the husband just happened to be Nate's future grandmother's brother. Years later, the relationship has blossomed, and the families all know each other and their extended families. My mother went to church with Nate's mother; they weren't in the same grade, but they went to school together. How crazy is that?
I'm going to nutshell this quite a bit more, but after more years go by, his mother met his father, a young marine from Trenton, NJ because she was signed up to be a blind date to the military ball. They really clicked that night. He shipped out to serve shortly after, and she waited for him. He came back. They got married. Three amazing boys were born. The youngest of which was my Nate. In this time, before the boys were born, the young marine had become a young preacher in the same faith as my grandparents. In fact, my grandpa was an elder, and he helped to bring this young preacher into the congregation. So now to catch up, this means my future father-in-law was, for a time, the preacher in my future family's church. He later went on to have his own congregation in Milton a time later, where young Nate grew up going to the same elementary school as me for a brief period.
I was floored by this story, and instantly appreciative of whatever forces brought us together under completely different circumstances decades later. Nate's surgery went well, and life went on together.
CarmeNate
We have been together ever since. We moved in together the following year when my lease expired, but we were shacking up long before then. The whole CarmeNate thing just came naturally with our names being so ready to be put together that way. We've continued to be CarmeNate for so long because we communicate, pick our battles rationally, and work together to fight to our problems. I attribute a lot of our lack of arguments to a piece of information my MiL gave me that night during that long, beautiful, life-changing conversation over Nate's unconscious body. We don't fight; we bicker when one or the other is grumpy due to whatever reason (lack of sleep, work-stress, psychoglycemia, etc.), but we don't fight. We communicate. We stop to figure out why one or the other is being a little pissy pants, and we fix that situation together.
Tangent about the advice: She basically said you're going to fight. Couples fight. People fight... but if you can stop fighting for just a moment and ask yourselves what you're fighting about, most of the time it's going to go back to money. Money isn't really either of your faults because you both need it. It's not like one is actively working against getting money. If you can stop and realize this though, then you can work together to fight the issue, rather than wasting your efforts by fighting a losing battle with each other.
It was beautiful advice. I took it to heart and applied it to our lives together. That kind of advice doesn't work for everyone, and I know we have it good because we're DINKs, and there are a lot of more serious issues people fight about on a daily basis, but maybe this will help someone. I hope so because you've made it this far, Reader, you should get something out of this, right?