I keep a journal. I know. It's not the kind of thing guys do but it helped me though some tough times in my youth and I have just kept doing it.
My wife, Madison, and I have been through a lot over the past 3 yrs. I have gone back through my journals. I have long debated about publishing these some of the events. I have decided that I am ready to do so. I am re-working them for privacy reasons as well as readability and other such things.
I hope you enjoy them:
Early 2007: Madison and I had been married just under two years. I guess we are the modern married couple. We met in college. We had a rough patch and went on a break. Thankfully we reunited after realizing that we were truly the ones for each other. I was a couple years past 30 while she was just on the other side of it. I love everything about Madison. I love her personality, her body and most of all, that hidden side of competitor and troublemaker that would challenge me and make life interesting in a good way. She loved me every bit as much as I loved her. I never felt like this before in my life and while I had always been skeptical of marriage, now I could not imagine life not being married to her.
We live in a decently populated area of "flyover" country. Our area was at the front end of the housing crisis. The economy began circling the drain in our area more than a year before anyone in the rest of the country was even aware. I had lost my salaried job along with health insurance and other benefits. Madison was between careers and only had a interim receptionist job. We had counted on my job and its security we thought came with it. I was lucky to find hourly work in the local plant. I am not the biggest of guys but I am responsible and as hard a worker as anyone. Lately many of us had our hours cut.
As you would imagine, we began to fall behind. Regularly we had to deciding which bills to pay and how late to pay the. There was no help at the time because the rest of America didn't think there was a problem.
This was the time that Madison's good friend, Susan, decided to share how her and Dave were surviving hard times. She said they were "performing" at a wealthy private "club" about once a month. That is all she would tell Madison, but said if we were serious about saving our home, her and Dave would meet with us and give us more detail.
Now when Madison came to me with this shady proposition, I figured we should have nothing to do with it. She talked me into at least hearing what they had to offer. We did love our house. We had envisioned raising a family here and Madison had a deep trust and friendship with Susan. I always felt there was something more there but I felt it best to leave it at that. Besides it made for some very hot daydreams.
Two nights later we were at Dave and Susan's nervously awaiting the solution to all our problems. Dave and Susan were a few years older than us. They had no kids yet. I remember Madison saying they just started trying when the economy turned and they felt it best to hold off. They had a very nice home. I had wondered how they were still affording their home. The evening was fun but tense. I am a 3 beer drinker kind of guy. At the moment, I was holding my 6th beer and had just finished a shot of Jager that Dave kept in the freezer. Madison was much calmer. She was always like that when the pressure was on. It was one of the things I found most attractive about her.
After the nervous pleasantries of the evening, Susan could tell we were anxious to hear what it was that was going to save our home and pay our bills.
Susan began by saying, "Madison and Max, you are our dear friends and we know you like many others are struggling with what is happening these days. We thought long and hard about sharing what has solved our problems with you."
Dave chimed in, "Please don't judge us. We were staring into the abyss when this opportunity came along."
With that I feared they were going to continue to only hint and what was going on. I declared, "Yes, y'all are our friends. Hell your our best friends. That isn't going to change and I honestly can't take the suspense. I wish you would just tell us what the hell this thing is already."
Madison put her hand on my knee accompanied with a stern, "Honey."
Sarah, sensing my stress level said, "No, Max is right. Well, I guess there is no other way to say it."
Dave blurted out, "We wrestle."
I said, "You what?"
Susan repeated, "We wrestle."
"What do you mean wrestle? Like in high school wrestle? Wait, how can that be thing to save us?!" I said.
I noticed that Madison was extremely cool in the face of this news. She is cool under fire, but not this cool. I suspected that it meant that she already was already told about this.
"We wrestle pro-style, in a ring as a tag team. Against other couples.", Dave said calmly.
I just stared at them like they just stepped off of a UFO.
The evening continued with them explaining the situation to me. An older wealthy billionaire and his wife liked to wrestle with other couples back in the 60's and into the 70's. Now that they are older they created a private club where they have other couples wrestle. The club members watch the matches.