Monday, December 20, 2010

The Second Wave

I just found out today that one of my best friends from college is also engaged, which of course took me to her Facebook page, which led me to another old friend's Facebook page where I learned that she too is engaged.  Ah...there must be some wonderful magic in the air!  I wonder who else from my past out there is either recently married or engaged that I don't know about?

People are always saying that you hear about death in three's...well why not something a little less depressing?  Why not engagements? 

One summer about three years ago (there's that magic number again), I had SEVEN friends who got married all within three (hehehe) months of eachother.  SEVEN!  And yet, I had been in a relationship longer than all of them.  Right around that time of this first marriage wave I began feeling a tad "behind schedule"; but aside from the fact that I wasn't married, my relationship was perfectly healthy.  So why then did I suddenly start panicking and pointing my finger at Dave? (Can you guess which finger?)  I wasn't ready for kids yet, but maybe I was ready to start thinking about when I would eventually be ready to have kids...I began "making plans to make plans", if you know what I mean.  After all, other people were done making plans to make plans...they were in the execution of aforementioned plans!  And to compound the whole situation, whenever Dave and I would introduce eachother and people would inevitably bat their eyes and ask how long we've been together ("five years"..."six years"..."I-lost-track years"...), there was always the quiet, embarrassed "Oh" response. 

Oh.  Like I don't know what "oh" means.  Oh means I should be worried, right?  Oh means I should start freaking out and accusing my boyfriend of being an asshole even though he supported me when I couldn't find a job, even though he goes out of his way every single day to make me happy and encourage me in everything I want to do, even though he knows me better than most other people have ever known me. 

Go oh yourselves, I should have said.  I wish I had it to do over again, that me-now could go back and tell me-then to relax and stop and look around (yes, I'm aware that was a gratuitous plug for my own blog's URL) and just enjoy what was going on in my life.  And what was I doing while everyone else was getting married?  I was getting a Master's degree; I was changing cities; I was test-running living with my future husband; I was going on vacations; I was focusing on a new job; I was paying off my debt; I was buying a condo; I was going out and partying in an exciting new city and meeting new people and making good friends; I was climbing mountains; I was falling more in love with a guy who was changing just as much as I was.

And what was Dave doing?  Dave was getting promotion after promotion after promotion; he was spending his money on stuff that made us happy the way stuff can only make people who are young and free of serious responsibilities happy; he was holding my hand, enjoying each day, and telling me he loves me every chance he got. 

We were deciding what kind of people we wanted to be before deciding what kind of husband and wife we wanted to be.  And then, without really trying, we turned into those people without even noticing.

I'm not saying any of this to criticize my friends who married early; I love you all, and wish you nothing but all the happiness in the world.  And I'm not saying it's anybody's fault but my own for feeling like there was something missing in my life when there wasn't.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that life works out differently for all of us, and the only chance anybody ever has of being genuinely happy is to stop trying to fit some predetermined mold and just do what feels right to you.  I remember when my sister got engaged last year, I was really nervous about going to a family party because I knew that in spite of the fact that we should all be focusing on being absolutely estactic for Stephanie, who was going to marry the man of her dreams which is definitely cause for nothing but celebration, there would be some small-minded talk (whether it reached my ears or not) about how I should have never moved in with Dave without getting married first.  I expressed this anxiety to my father over the phone, and he said something along the lines of this: "Niela, you've never done anything the way other people do it...and you've always turned out fine.  Don't worry about what other people say."

So, to all the girls in the second wave, whether I know you or not, to those who didn't worry about what other people had to say or what other people were doing, who were busy making themselves happy in different ways while they waited for life to throw their loves across their way...here's to you, here's to us. 

Enjoy your moment, now that you're ready for it.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

I know, I know...the 15 minutes are over

When you tell people that you're recently engaged, the first thing they ask after saying congratulations is, "Let's see the ring!" Okay, so it's not so much of a question as it is a mandate, but you get the idea. The day I got engaged I obviously did not realize I'd be sporting a glamorous rock by the end of the day, a rock that every person I'd encounter over the next three weeks would grab my hand and demand to see. That hand, at the time, was covered in unpolished, chipped nails, scabby cuticles, and cat scratches. This is nothing unusual...suffice it to say that hand-modeling has never been a career option for me. My father told me once that my grandmother used to wake up with inexplicable scratches on her hands, which she would justify by saying, "The witches got to me in the night." My grandmother's witches have been working their mischief on my hands for as long as I can remember, and they apparently were also unaware or simply did not care that my fingers would be under scrutiny for the next few weeks. And man, did they look miserable next to the splendor and beauty that is a brand-spanking-new diamond.

I know, I know...the fact that my hands were a mess should not matter given the joyous occasion, but please don't judge me for immediately heading to the nail salon the next morning for a celebrity upgrade. I didn't see anyone other than the family I was spending Thanksgiving with that first night I was engaged, but the experience was enough to tell me what I was in for. Literally one minute after I said "Yes," my sister was already asking me what color the bridesmaids would be wearing (to which I responded "coral pantsuits"...she dropped it after that). Pictures were being taken, I kept spontaneously getting hugged, my mother kept holding my hand, and everyone had wedding questions. Granted, I've been envisioning my wedding for years, but now that I could actually start verbalizing those ideas out loud without feeling pathetic, I was coming up blank. "I don't know what month I want to get married in; I don't know what kind of centerpieces; I don't know how I'm going to wear my hair; I don't know which hall." I suddenly realized that I'd pictured it happening so many times over so many years in so many different ways that now I had accumulated too many choices and couldn't make a decision, or even an opinion, about anything!

Now I know you must be rolling your eyes, fully aware that Dave and I just got engaged and there's no reason to be stressing about this stuff yet, which is exactly what I said to everyone who asked me these questions. The problem is that once my thoughts start in one direction, it's hard to reel them back in. The rest of the weekend was lost in celebrations. I flashed my newly polished hand, held tight to Dave, and laughed and smiled and laughed and smiled and...it was a great weekend. Everything else about my reality seemed make-believe. What job? What mortgage? Is someone leaving for Scotland? Nah! Let's all watch how my ring sparkles when the light hits it!

As we were going to bed that Sunday, I suddenly realized how unproductive I'd been. There was a huge stack of papers I was supposed to have graded, especially since grades were due that week. There were parent meetings to prepare for, a lesson observation quickly approaching, and I had absolutely nothing planned for class the next day. Sure, I have free periods and I could always go in early, but all I wanted to talk about was getting engaged. With a sinking heart, I realized I would have to decide between going around all day telling people I was engaged and jumping up and down and squealing OR lesson planning, grading, etcetera. Can you guess which option won out?

I didn't really have a choice in the matter; news spread quickly and I was only too happy to talk about it. In fact, I became nervous that I was talking too much about it. Perhaps immediately after getting engaged it's acceptable to want to talk about the experience and your plans, and people genuinely seem curious and interested. However, now that it's been a few weeks, I still find myself wanting to bring it up in lieu of talking about other, less self-centered topics. I never thought I'd say this, but the constant thinking about the wedding is starting to alter how I spend the majority of my time. My books have been replaced with internet searches for save-the-dates and halls, my stack of papers to grade have been pushed aside for wedding magazine perusal, and I'm now a danger on the roads because the sparkle of my ring keeps distracting me.

I've been making a big effort not to let the engagement go to my head, and to remind myself that other people do not want to talk about weddings all the time. So I keep the magazines at home for nighttime reading, and I try to only discuss planning issues with my mom and bridesmaids. And, of course, there's this blog where I can now write about weddings till my fingers break off , but friends and family can read only if they're actually interested and want to.

If, however, I should forget and begin to bore you in person with wedding talk, remind me that I've already made a vow in the wedding process:

"Do you, Daniela, promise not to obsessively talk about weddings and become a bridezilla?"

"I do."





Thursday, December 16, 2010

A Modest Proposal

Once upon a time, a college boy with round-rimmed glasses fixed the computer of his next door septum ring-ed neighbor. Thrilled that her beloved MP3's, stolen through Napster, were safely returned to her, the pair struck up a conversation while beers and buffalo chicken fingers were passed around them. Discovering they both shared a love of gory horror films, they stayed up watching Candyman while those on less destined paths went to sleep. Sometime around when the main character is dying a horrible death by fire, they shared their first kiss.

I would love to tell you this romantic moment had nothing to do with alcohol, but instead was love at first sight. But this ain't no fairy tale, folks. Dave and I spent a good deal of time taking turns avoiding and hating eachother just as much as we spent loving eachother during our courtship. Yet somehow, even with four American states of distance lying between us, we just couldn't seem to get rid of eachother. Time and time again we found ourselves facing eachother with shrugging shoulders, daring the other one not to give in and change just enough so that the other would stay. Little by little, we met somewhere in the middle, each of us emerging a new person everytime we decided to stick with it and try again.


So no, it's not a fairy tale, but damned if that's not what REAL LOVE STORIES are made of. After all, isn't it the stories of people willing to sacrifice and to fight and to hold on no matter what that ultimately end in some kind of happily ever after? Just because I'm a realist doesn't mean there isn't romance to be found in reality.


I digress. Thank you for sticking with me this far. Yes, this is actually a blog meant to chronicle the one and only time I will ever get married. Let's begin with the proposal.


Three weeks ago on Thanksgiving, Dave and I were sitting around my aunt's dinner table with the rest of my family. We have been spending our Thanksgivings this way for the past nine years, ever since the first weekend I brought him to meet my family my sophomore year of college. I was feeling miserable, having eaten to the point of making myself sick. Adding to my general feeling of yuckiness, my father couldn't seem to get the video camera out of my face. (Later, of course, I would learn that he was in on the surprise.) Just as I was erupting into a tirade of irritation, Dave pushed back from the table, stood up, and said, "Okay, I'm tired of waiting." At this point he turned to me and said, "Niela, I love you so much." As the realization of what was happening sunk in, my breath slowed although my heartrate picked up. Noting my silence, Dave felt the need to ask, "I think you love me, right?"



My memory is fuzzy, but I believe I managed to stutter out something along the lines of, "Duuuuuh, yeah..."


Here is where he pulled out the ring, got down on one knee, and in front of my whole family on a Thanksgiving I will never forget, he asked me to be his wife.


And I said yes.