SCRABBLE: & Marriage
I often expound on the many-sided benefits that come from playing scrabble. Mostly I write about building word power and memory skills.
But there are social benefits and challenges for some. Several divorces have been noted through the years, as a direct or indirect result of scrabble. For those couples, it became a wedge.
But then there are a number of couples who found one another at a club or a tournament or online and a common interest (scrabble) led to other things, including marriage.
By the way, did I mention that I am getting married TODAY. (And would you believe it? Scrabble played a part in my story.)
About 22 years ago, at the beginning of my scrabble obsession, I was single again, and found myself dating a lovely woman, herself just out of nonfunctional marriage. Both of our lives were unsettled. We enjoyed one another, but the timing for anything more than that was lacking. There wasn’t any drama or bad vibes when we went our separate ways. We just moved on with our separate lives.
In recent years I had come to accept the fact that I would most likely remain single for the rest of my days. I had settled deep into my easy chair and was very much at peace with a life of scrabble, restaurant food, an occasional female companion and the frequent company of ‘Law & Order’.
Unbeknownst to me, my friend Adrienne of some 22 years ago, was out of a long term relationship and still hoping to meet her Mr. Right. While at work one day (in Southfield, Michigan), a man walked in wearing a SCRABBLE T-Shirt. Adrienne turned to him and said, “I used to know a guy who was consumed by his involvement with scrabble.” The man responded. And before you know it they were talking about scrabble and Adrienne mentioned my name. The man to whom she was talking was Paul Epstein, one of the best of the best in scrabble circles, and by chance, an old friend of mine.
Paul told Adrienne that I was still smitten by the game of scrabble and that she could find me right here at scrabblesense.com Her curiosity led her to click on my website and sparked some good old memories of some fun times together with me. A few days later she entered my name into Facebook and read my profile. She learned that I was single and that Scrabble had been my constant mistress over the years.
At the end of March I received an email (at my home in Laguna Woods, CA.) from my old friend. And a marathon of emails began that turned into a marathon of phone calls by April. (Thank god for ‘Magic Jack’. I couldn’t have afforded the growing relationship with the cost of overtime cell phone minutes.)
My family (mother, kids, grandkids, cousins) mostly live in Michigan. I had a planned trip back to Michigan on the week of June 20. I needed a place to stay. Adrienne owns a 2 bedroom condo there, about a mile away from my mother’s apartment. (A match made in heaven.)
I proposed on June 25th.
My family had a reunion planned for the weekend of August 13. With the bulk of Adrienne’s family and my family being in one city at the same time, it was only thoughtful and reasonable that we get married today and save everyone the expense of traveling another time to our wedding.
Many people were shocked by the speed that all of this has occurred. Several people have pulled me aside and suggested, “Why rush? Take some time.”
I will turn 68 on August 20. What should I wait for? Should I wait until I turn 70?
After the wedding we’ll have a reception with family and friends. The next few days will be spent waiting for the movers. Then Adrienne and I will hop into her car and drive cross-country over 5 or 6 days to my condo in Laguna Woods, California. Most of the renovations to my closets and storage spaces are complete. (We may have to rent the condo next door as a walk-in closet.)
Good friends will look over and fill in at my scrabble clubs in my absence. I will be back home in plenty of time to direct the 1st Sunday Tournament on Sunday, September 5th.
Here’s a link to our wedding invitation. CLICK HERE
As ‘they’ say, “When you least expect it.”