Blake Fly

Transcript

I conquered puberty thank you so did you and if you're going through that stage you will too but let's go back in time a little bit to younger Blake specifically age four I was the definition of cute fire-engine red hair a face covered in freckles and I knew I was cute because people would stop me in public places to come up to me just to tell me that I was cute you were so cute oh look at your face and I loved it and I worked it oh my god hey how are you call me I'm four I loved the way what people would look

at me I loved the attention now let's go to that place known as the prime of puberty suddenly the attention was a little bit different I had no idea that it would take so much courage to push myself through my pubescent peer hallways every morning in school I would go into the hallways and I would be cut off by the comments I would pause based on the fingers that were pointing right at me and every single day I would hear the same line dude look at your face and I couldn't do anything about it because I was gifted as the first person in the whole

school and of all the kids to be given something known as cystic acne now this isn't basic run-of-the-mill acne this is basically bumps boils and blood marks all across the face and it is impossible to cover up and believe me I tried every morning before school I would open the bathroom drawer and I would see all the things that the TV told me to buy I had the Neutrogena the Noxzema all the things that clean and clear whatever but as I would wash my face each morning and look up in the mirror I'm like okay let me look like TV except I didn't the acne

did not stop the creams did nothing so we moved to the next level drugs the pills the meds the things that would just erase the acne from my 14 year old skin didn't work so we went all the way each week I'd have to skip school because my mom would take me to the dermatologist to get weekly injections in my face it would relieve the pressure and I knew I was at my wit's end when I would take it into my own hands and in the evenings I'd go into the bathroom but first take my mom's sewing kit and remove some bobby pins so that

I could stand in the bathroom mirror and I could give myself my own injections in hopes to relieve the physical pressure which was actually just an attempt to relieve the social pressure and the emotional pain I felt alone I felt different I felt ugly I felt basically like a freak and it was very different from a few years prior this is a time in life when kids are being seen in a way that has never been done before we used to have to conquer our grade now kids need to conquer the globe we used to be able to go home and we didn't have to

hear the comments now as long as we are connected we're connected to the comments and I was fortunate enough to have my complexion clear and I was then given the gift of the ultimate exercise in empathy and a master class in maturity and to be honest I'm kind of glad that I only had to conquer my grade and not go up against the globe but my hope is that for kids today when they look themselves in the mirror what they see looking back at them is something that they know will just be temporary and in fact it will help them in ways that they'll never

even know

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Transcript

Seven months ago I got married I have proof that's the wedding invitation and because I've now been a married man to my wife for seven months I believe that I'm qualified to tell you how to love a woman actually I don't believe I'm qualified at all I've only been married seven months but what I will tell you is just a little bit about this concept known as marriage and by the way who you choose to love and how you choose to love them will apply regardless based on this story that I'm about to tell you when I was a small freckleface redheaded kid I thought

marriage was cool my parents seemed happy plus we had this photo on the kitchen wall that said happiness is being married to your best friend I thought cool picture and all that I wanted as a young boy was to get girls allow me to clarify I meant to understand girls so at about age 10 I noticed that I stumbled upon something what I'll refer to as girly magazines and so I'd find myself riding my bicycle to the convenience store getting a Slurpee and then heading to the back where the shelves were and I was captivated by the women on the covers of these photos these

magazines you might know some of the titles teen girl Y M Cosmo Girl I couldn't stop reading the headlines they were so captivating how to know if he's the right boyfriend for you how to kiss your first girlfriend and boyfriend who will you take to prom I thought this is the Holy Grail this has the answers so I was a searcher for knowledge on what would help me someday be a married man to the woman of my dreams and I had this extra resource this confidant in my life I would spend the summers at the cottage and I had a friend who was three doors

down her and I each summer we'd meet up and we would just swap stories me about girls her about boys we'd try to help each other out with matters of the heart and then we just became really close and years later I had a holiday work party where I used to work and I thought I haven't seen her in a while I'll just invite her to this event and all my colleagues when they saw my friend from the cottage they said to me who is that I said oh that's my friend I've known her since I was 11 we hang out at the cottage she

doesn't know it yet but I'm going to marry her someday they didn't know if I was kidding or not but what's cool is that her name it's also on the invitation but here's the problem all the way up to a wedding day it's so cool magazines talk about it the movies are all about it the wedding is the end and then the next part of the film is either divorce or death there's nothing in the middle so basically it's two different worlds just use this sentence as an example Hey so I'm dating this new person versus hey I'm married so I needed to figure out

what resources could I gather to learn how to love a woman the one that I chose and made a commitment to for the rest of my life so I interviewed people I basically would ask whoever I could find who was old young married divorced I said how do you love a woman and the answers that I got were profound I have a memo on my phone that is a long list of answers except what I now realize is that I'm not asking that question to get the answer I'm asking that question just as a consistent commitment to the fact that I want the wedding to

be the start of the adventure that will go for a very long time and I'm not naive I know the statistics and I know things can happen like that life is precious but I wanted to do a thing for myself that would remind me that the wedding day is the start line and there's a whole lot to come that we can navigate so on our wedding day I edited the invitation to say this the family of Emily and Blake invite you to their 75th wedding anniversary same day same time and now the only goal is to figure out how to love my woman to somehow

get their healthy happy and together you

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