My friends, dreams do come true. Little kids grow up to be big league ballplayers. The kid strumming his guitar on the street corner is later known worldwide as Elvis Presley. That little brat with the lemonade stand ends up owning half a city.

The sea doesn’t have to part – small miracles happen all the time. Good things happen to good people. What you’ve wanted since you were a wild-eyed boy may just come to you tomorrow.

I married the girl of my dreams. I mean that literally. Look at that ugly mug at the top of this column. There is the face of a guy who got what he’s always wanted. There is the face of a man who can’t believe his luck.

When I was a young boy, I dreamed of a beautiful girl I met on the beach. She was only vapors in my subconscious. But when I woke up, I missed her. I spent that morning sad and wondering how a make-believe girl could be so special. I was maybe 8 years old. Little guys know very little about the intricacies of love or how powerful it is.

I understood roughly two decades later, though. I understood when I met that beach girl again in the real world. I met her when I started working at the newspaper, and I was instantly smitten.

No. Not smitten. I was floored by this lovely creature, as if she were someone I’d pined for most of my life.

In fact, she was. I believe now she is the girl I dreamed of on the beach when I was too young to understand things like destiny. I believe that as much as I believe in anything.

For seven years, I adored her from afar. Colleagues knew of my fancy, but the object of my desire remained oblivious. I waited. And waited. And watched her. The girl of that far-gone dream.

Now she’s mine. I proposed in a pumpkin patch. We married on an ocean beach, with the chilly tide just inches from our feet. We later waded into the icy surf just to celebrate a dream come true. I’m in love and married.

But you’re not interested in this. I’m a crime reporter, not a romance novelist. What I bring you each week is views from downtown. Fights with blood and kicks and punches. Knives and guns.

I have to wonder how being married will affect my work.

Will I be softer as I go downtown into the muck? Will strange sympathies mute my sense for the lurid tales that I love to write?

I don’t think so. I really don’t. I love my job. I love my beat. My heart will always be here, downtown. Down here, the sordid tales tell themselves. I’m just the pen that scratches it on paper.

Everyone has a passion in their life that consumes them. And everyone needs something external, occasionally, to anchor them to the rest of the world. You can get lost in that passion and then wonder late in life why you neglected everything else along the way.

There was a time when I spent each night sleeping on a different couch. I’d wake up hung over and go on to whatever job I was working at the time.

I wake up now and see what is mine. If I could have laid out a blueprint for my life, I couldn’t have designed it this well. I’m a crime reporter. I’m married to the girl from the beach. I’m crazy in love with all things in my life.

My friends, I will never let you down. I will always bring you the story, like a dog bringing your slippers after a long day. It’s just that now – after one of those days where I have to chase stories with a spear – I get to come home to my bride.

I love my job. I love my wife. All is right with the world.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.

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