How To Find Your Unicorn

Someone on social media asked me today how Deanna and I met. Good catch. I never posted it so I guess it’s about time to tell you how I found my unicorn.

Luck is a funny thing. While we refer to it as good and bad in reality it really isn’t, it’s just luck. Most people fall within one standard deviation of the norm. If you’ve been with me since 2015 or earlier you know that I am several standard deviations from the norm. 7 heart procedures (2 open heart), 2 strokes, cardiac arrest, heart attack, botched heart surgery, MRSA, pulmonary embolisms, etc, etc. The fact I am still here is an absolute miracle (1 in 27,000). There was a lot of bad luck.

Then there is the one in a billion chance I’d meet Deanna.

I was wintering in the Phoenix area because my oldest son Nick was there along with some friends and we would get a lot of time together. (Also weather) A week before I arrived Nick called to tell me he was being transferred to Kansas City the day after Thanksgiving. I was going to have a lot of free time on my hands.

It was around Christmas and I was bored. Facebook Dating had been trying to get me to join for a few years and I decided what the heck. So I slapped up these four pictures and a couple of quick sentences, spending less time than it probably takes to order a sandwich. I wasn’t going to actively seek matches but if anyone reached out I’d take a look.

I received a notification that some women had liked my profile. When I clicked on the link a stunningly beautiful woman’s picture popped up. She claimed to be 49. If she was 49, this picture was 20 years old.

You can’t send someone a message on Facebook Dating unless you have both liked each other, so I clicked like and tried to send her a message. That is when Facebook informed me, “Oh, she didn’t like you. She’s a new profile. These OTHER women liked you.” Well, shit.

Then, go figure, she liked me back. She had a lot of family things going on (and I’m sure a lot of men asking her on dates) so we didn’t connect until after the New Year. We’d been talking for a bit when she asked about the trailer. Was it a vacation thing or was I actually living in it?

I wanted to lie soooo badly, but I couldn’t. I told her the truth. And what do you know. She had just gotten rid of her place in New York, come to her parents’ place in Phoenix, purchased a truck and trailer and was getting ready to travel the country herself!

We went on a date. Then another. Then another. We have been inseparable since.

How about them apples? What are the odds of a motivational speaker, living in a van down by the river, meeting the girl of his dreams by clicking the wrong link on a dating profile and stumbling into another equally crazy person starting their own journey of discovery on the road???

So that is the story of how we met and how I’m living a life several standard deviations from the norm. Oh yeah, that pic of hers? Not 20 years old.