When It Just Feels Right

Some nights catch you off guard in the best possible way. Mary and I were invited to a birthday celebration for a close friend (Greenland Shark) and his girlfriend who branded the evening S + N = 115 — their combined age, presented with the kind of confidence only they could pull off. And the party lived up to the equation.

Cocktails. Passed hors d’oeuvres. Buffet stations that hopped from Asian to Mediterranean to Mexican. Dancing. Pinball machines. A tarot card reader. It felt like the kind of night built entirely to remind adults that joy is still very much on the menu.

Then Mary's favorite: Bananas Foster and crème brûlée. I fully endorse eating both together. Later in the night, right when everyone hit that “maybe we should head out” wall, they unveiled a surprise: late-night cheeseburger sliders, fries and mini shakes. That’s event design at its finest.

At one point the birthday couple shared a small moment — a quiet truth about how their relationship simply feels right. No theatrics. Just a recognition they both felt in their bones.

And instantly, I was pulled back 37 years.

Young love has a pace and a texture you don’t understand until hindsight sharpens it. For us, it came wrapped in a gold 1967 Chevy II with bench seats — the kind where Mary could slide right up next to me. We drove everywhere and with everyone in that car: Berlin, Smart Bar, Neo… leaving clubs at 4 AM and racing toward the suburbs before dawn.

Mary lived at home. I lived in the city with no car. And I was absolutely not allowed in her house.

Her mom wasn’t thrilled with the guy who studied electrical engineering and music composition at Illinois but earned almost nothing working in the recording industry. (Reasonable objection. I would’ve objected to me too.)

So after dropping Mary off at 5 AM, she’d slip inside and come back out with blankets. And I’d crawl into the back seat of that Chevy II and sleep. In winter. In summer. In anything. I never questioned it. It felt right — like part of the deal of being young and in love.

And then in the Summer at 8 AM sharp, her dad would fire up the lawn mower and make a few strategic passes by the car. Never knocking on the window. Never saying a word. Just the universal fatherly message of “I see you.”

He eventually came around — completely and fully. Before we got married, he pulled me aside in the driveway and delivered one of the greatest speeches of my life:

“John, I’ve got a vested interest in the man my daughter marries. And just so we’re clear — I’m a big shitter and you’re a little shitter. Any shit you try to pull? I’ll know. I’ve seen all sizes of shit.”

I still laugh every time I think about it. And by the time I was finally allowed through the front door, he’d wander around the house in nothing but tighty-whities — which is its own form of acceptance.

But the real glue, the real reason we made it through the snow, the lawn-mowing wake-up calls, and the years that followed, is this: Mary and I could talk. About family. About fears. About who we were becoming. And just as often, we didn’t need to talk — we already knew what the other person thought. We were almost always in alignment, even in the unspoken moments. Everything that could’ve been difficult somehow felt simple with her. It just fit.

Just like the blankets at 5 AM. Just like that kiss goodnight through the car window. Just like waking up rumpled and cold in the back seat and knowing I wouldn’t change a thing.

As I get older — as all of us in the Greenland Sharks orbit get older — gratitude shows up in new ways. It’s rarely the big sweeping moments. It’s the little ones that stack quietly until they become a life.

This year, I’m grateful for evenings like S + N = 115, where someone else’s joy sends you drifting into your own memories. I’m grateful for Mary — for 37 years of “it just feels right.” For our kids, who still come home and fill the house. For friends who make space for us. For the Sharks, who continue proving that men in their 50s and 60s can build community, laugh like teenagers, and share things that actually matter. For parents who shaped us in loud and quiet ways — even through lawn-mower diplomacy. And for that old Chevy II (I could not find the few photos we have) that held more of our beginnings than we ever realized.

May your Thanksgiving be full of warmth, laughter, good stories, and the people who make you feel like you are exactly where you should be.