Shared Excitement

My wife amazes me. She is such a better person than I am. Her ability to put up with me and those things that drive me, my passions, continues to astound me.

I've wanted to make movies since I was nine years old. When my wife married me, she married that part of me as well. Even though she does not share that passion or drive, she loves me enough that my goals peripherally become her's.

The first time this was most evident was in the mid-90s. I was working at Nickelodeon Studios in Orlando. We were newly married and life was nothing but opportunities waiting to be grasped. I had written a screenplay called One View Only and sent it off to the Worldfest Houston Screenplay Competition. Weeks passed and one day I got an excited call from my wife. In the mail was a notification that I had won third prize for the script.

In her Italian-heritage excited volume, she yelled to me that I had won. I can still hear the excitement in her voice. She knew how much it meant to me and my excitement becamed her's as well. At that moment I felt she finally understood, on some level, or could at least appreciate the passions that had been in me since childhood.

That moment was a far greater and longer lasting reward than any screenplay contest could ever offer.