Part 1

I remember being a little girl playing MASH to decide what my fate was. I’d marry someone rich, drive a green Porsche and we’d live in a mansion. We’d have three kids and live happily ever after. It was just a game and even though I knew it wasn’t true, I still hoped that someday my life would turn out half as good as the game predicted.

As we grow up we still want the same thing but we just won’t say it out loud like we did when were kids. We look for a partner who is successful, has their ‘shit together’ or a promising future. Someone who can provide for us financially and emotionally plus all the other things we need to be happy.

But what if you fall in love with someone who doesn’t have those things just yet? What are you willing to endure to help see your partner becomes exactly who they need and want to be? What are you willing to do to ensure you also get the life you’re dreaming of?

When I met my husband he was eighteen. We started dating a year later. He came to the US with two gis, a couple of pieces of clothing and $400 that was gone before the end of the month. When we started dating I also didn’t have much. I was living in a friends house and drove a fifteen year old Honda Accord. But I was full of dreams and chasing them full force.

Then I made the mistake of inviting Renato over and on the first night we stayed up until two am talking about our dreams. Then the next night we fell asleep at four am. By the third night it was nearly sun light by the time we went to bed. We shared too much and that was our first mistake because this ‘thing’ we were doing was only supposed to be fun.

Well, I met my match an I knew it immediately. This was different. He was a dreamer too and I knew that his dreams had already become mine. In just three nights I knew that I would do whatever I could to help make all his wildest dreams come true.

It only took two and a half months of being together for Renato to win his first world championship, something he was chasing for the last eleven years of his life. One he had let slip away for the last four years prior to that one. We’d marry each other a month later because in his words, “I found what I was missing.” We were broke but we were happy and more importantly, we were in love.

Four months later he would win his second world title, finish the year off with a promotion and then start his quest to the coveted black belt world championship. It would take him just one year to win his first accompanied by his first Grand Prix championship and a quick rise to stardom. All while we were still living together in a room in a home we shared with three other people. And yes, I was still driving my now sixteen year old Accord because we were still not making much money.

Lets back to the beginning! Renato was getting paid $70 every two weeks and I was living off of some money I saved from my last fight. I didn’t have much but I shared everything I had with Renato. About a week into hanging out he slept over and never left but I was happy he didn’t. We lived in our own little world for those first two and a half months getting ready for the worlds. We woke up, trained, ate, napped, trained some more(and had a whole lot of es ey ex if I’m being completely honest). It felt like were living in a dream.

The morning that we got married, I hid in the living room and cried. I was so afraid to bring Renato into this life of struggle with me. Even though we were already doing it, I was so afraid to fail him.What if I couldn’t make things happen for him? What if I held him back because we couldn’t afford to do things we needed to? Now we were two people and that suddenly felt so scary. Renato came looking for me after a while and put me in his lap, hugged me and reassured me that everything would be okay. And he was right. From that day on he did everything he possibly could to make sure he took care of us and I the same….

(Stay tuned for part II)