Ride the Wave: Ten Years and A Day!

Ride The Wave: Ten Years and A Day!

John Paul Derryberry

I have always wanted to try surfing, but I will fail. My balance is horrible; I do not live near an ocean to get the time in. But it captures life pretty well. Every surfer knows the wave will hit land, the end is coming, and the wave will crash. Yet they paddle out into the ocean chasing the perfect wave, the blissful experience of trying to tame the ocean's chaos. The waves of life were on my mind this Sunday evening. As my wife and I crossed relationship milestones, and even with the healthiest of relationships, there were ups and downs, waves to speak to regarding relationships that lasted ten years. Yet, we have ridden our waves rather well.

As I pondered life's waves, I drifted to how we often utter false platitudes about the difference one person makes. Yet, I sit here today because of the difference one person made in my life. I have been lucky enough to call Anne my wife for ten years and a day. My love for her is different, better than it was on June 14th, 2014. It is somehow deeper and more profound, yet it still flutters with the youthful doubts of how I convinced someone so amazing to do life with me. I suppose doing love correctly means constantly falling in love with the new version of the same person who I have known for years.

I remember our conversation on our wedding day about how I was 98% happy, and she understood that I wanted my dad to be alive at my wedding. A notion that she fully supported with the inclusion of my dad's red cinnamon jelly beans at the tables for guests. Or, throughout time together, when I'm feeling down, a delivery of red cinnamon jelly beans occasionally will arrive at our house. It hasn't happened in a while, and that's because it's been a while since I have been down. Yet the inclusion of my father in our relationship, even though he has been gone a long time, has been vital to her. A fact she repeated with the birth of our children, often telling my girls she wished she got to meet my dad. To live life with someone who gets you, your past, and everything that makes you, you, is nothing short of perfection.

Or when I interviewed for a dream job, she stopped me on the way out the door. She said, be you, 100% of you, and made me wear a bow tie to an interview to drive home that it was ok to be unapologetically myself. That comment launched the most successful five-year period in my professional career. No holding back and being the John that I thought I needed to be to play the game and get the job. Just be me and lead in all the ways you have ever wanted to lead. She'll tell you I'm the most intense yet calm person, and I should not shy away from figuring out that balance. Yet, in a world where so much is scripted, work-shopped, and tested before it's rolled out, she encouraged me to not do that because that's not me, be rough, be on the tip of the spear, and be the one who cares a lot.

That's not to say every wave we have attempted to ride over these ten years has been easy. Our journey to becoming parents was riddling the waves, knocking us over and down, and one instance where I felt myself drown for a second or two. Our family's relocation to Anne's hometown came with pitfalls, starts, stops, and waves we failed to ride. Professional goals have been hit and missed and caused some big wipeouts. Yet a life without friction and conflict is a life without growth, and without growth, you can not go from someone who can't surf to someone who can.

It's the response Anne and I have to those failures that make us healthy. We have somehow turned toward each other and emerged stronger from them—not through a constant cheery outlook but by figuring out what supporting each other looks like, by showing up for each other, even in hard times, and by communicating to each other to try to ride the wave again and again. So far, we have been able to do that for ten years and a day. Here's to making it to 20 years and 2 days, no matter the waves we face over the coming years.