Victory!

I can't help but feel as though I have returned home from a gruesome battle victorious. As I glance down to the battered shield and bloodstained blade, I begin to realize just how horrific the last few years actually was for me....

But rather than revel in the less than stellar memories of the past...I'd like to begin to rejoice the wonderful things that have come to pass in recent months and will happen in the very near future.

First off, through time, I grew courageous enough to ask Paola to come to dinner with me. The relationship blossomed (slowly -albeit) from that point on. We've had our moments...both of us have taken turns being rude to the other....but the eventual outcome was me asking her (or telling her) to marry me on December 4, 2008.

Shortly thereafter we learned that would be blessed with a baby and although (I felt) her vanity might have caused her to take some medicine to clear up a condition she was having (that subsequently would have endangered her pregnancy).... she showed the true selflessness that has come to define Paola. I have had the pleasure of meeting one other person as willing to sacrifice for their loved ones as her. (<3 Mom)

A few months later, we learned that our blessing was going to be named Heidi Alexis Desrosiers (it was a girl -- for those who couldn't read between the lines). In the time since then, I've faced quite a few internal questions regarding the impending birth of our baby. I'm happy to say that the (very fast) internal responses were always positive, "I'm ready", and "I'll kill that son of a bitch!!". (Which has shown me how ready I am to father a little girl.)

Yesterday marked the end of a long, arduous period in my life. I am now free to do what I have wanted to do for a long time: Marry Paola.

I would ask you to join me in celebration...but I didn't wait for you....and now my liver is letting me know how wrong that was.

=o)