Pregnancy: The Wedding

6/17/22 - 27 weeks and 5 days

The Wedding

At 6:15AM, I wake-up and assume that I might be the first. Hip and bladder discomfort makes it tough to sleep-in anymore. I find that I’m wrong when I emerge into the main area and find that my friends have already been up and about setting things up for the ceremony. Flowers are placed down on the deck that overlooks the lake and tealights line the edges, waiting to be lit. It will be the first of many moments today that I feel lucky - humbled by love.  

I pour myself a cup of coffee and start getting ready. The night before, I bride-d it up a bit by putting a curling ribbon in my hair and applying a face mask. My skin does look good today. Once makeup is applied, hair is let down and brushed out, my thrift shop dress comes on, I pin a homemade fake-flower crown into my hair, grab my bouquet, and we’re ready to go. 

My partner and I chose to walk to the altar together, hand in hand, to The Muse by the Wood Brothers.

As I sit on the edge of this never made bed

Old guitar in my lap, a new tune in my head

There she stands in the doorway just brushin’ her hair

It’s my beautiful muse in her underwear…

The first verse calls to mind his old studio apartment. It was where we went after our fifth date, over six years ago. We had gone on our second hike together, and had such a good time that we wanted to keep going into dinner. We had Thai food, and then we still wanted to keep going. We talked about which bar might be the least offensive to either of us until I said, “Do you want to just grab a six pack and head back to your place?” He did. We sat on the roof, each of us drinking a dark Einstok. I told him I was thinking about going to grad school so that I might become a therapist. He said that sounded interesting and I should go for it.

On another date, we met at his place and went to the grocery store to get cake ingredients. We came back to that apartment, made funfetti cake together, and then ate that cake when it was done and frosted. That same recipe is the one we chose to make for our wedding cake. It seemed right. 

That was more or less how it went. We would sit on the bed or on the floor, sometimes playing music, sometimes talking, often making dinner together. He had a desk and two uncomfortable chairs we would perch on and watch whatever show we were into together.

When I first told him I loved him, it was after a day hike, around four months into dating. We were sitting on the edge of his bed, talking about something that gave me enough of an opening to say, “I mean, I guess… if something happened to me, or to you, I would want you to know how I felt. It’s something I would want you to be aware of, in that case.” You’ll notice I didn’t actually say the words.

Later in the evening, as we were lying in bed, we gazed at each other in the dim light. “I do,” I said, surrendering. “I love you.”

His smile. Bright and wide.

“I love you, too.”

As I sit on the end of this dirty old bar

Tryin’ to work some things out and not gettin’ too far

And I drown out the voices that are keepin’ me down

There’s a muse all alone on the other side of town…

I can still picture that apartment, but on a very different kind of day. I remember staring at the cracks in the ceiling, wondering if I would ever see them again. I was confused, hurt, angry, and brokenhearted. I pleaded. I wanted to talk about it. Figure it out. “Two years…” I wept. Sadness in his eyes, but also certainty. “I know.”

It would take me a while to begin to understand his side of it.

I went to a month long yoga teacher training, as planned. I went to Iceland, impulsively. Most helpful: I went to therapy. I even did EMDR. And suddenly all of these strategies and protections that I had built around myself to keep people from getting too close became impossible to ignore. I had to grieve them. I had to accept that they were there and become willing to let someone see behind them, even if that felt like the stupidest thing I could possibly do - an invitation for brutal rejection.

By this time, several months had passed, and we had stopped talking. I missed him still, but I was determined to let him go. I had even started looking around on Bumble, had chatted with a few people, and had scheduled a date with someone. 

Then I had a dream about him. I dreamed that I was on a date with someone else and he showed up again. I woke up, aching for him. “Goddamnit,” I wept, “If I’m supposed to let him go, let me let him go.” 

A week later, the night before my date, I heard from him again.

It was not easy. We started therapy together. We had conversations about what we had been doing to each other and all the ways we triggered the other’s defenses. It was digging around in open wounds, at times, and I felt all at once misunderstood (“I wasn’t trying to do that!”) and seen clearly in vivid, excruciating detail.

And it was also the closest I have ever felt to anyone. Our journey to trusting one another again was as humbling as I have ever experienced and as true an act of devotion as I could ever hope to give and receive.

As I sit on the bed in this hospital room

Sheddin’ a tear for the bride and groom

The tiniest voice starts to bellow and cry

It’s my finest work yet if today I should die

It’s been a couple of years since we’ve seen the inside of that apartment. I think now of our home together with its loose doorknobs and busted air conditioner. I think of swaying dancing in the kitchen while water boils. I think of his warm gaze and of every single time we’ve chosen one another - every moment we’ve felt misunderstood, but then allowed the other to understand. I think of how open and gentle we’ve both become. I think of our future. I think of our girl.

So when we arrive at the altar, I feel ready. We have worked for this. We have suffered and rebuilt for this. We have surrendered and devoted ourselves to this. We belong to one another because we have each been a part of the other’s remaking and, in doing so, understand how to better belong to ourselves. 

In our vows, which were written together, we promise to choose not only to love each other, but to choose the actions of love. To reach for each other, to turn toward one another, and to be with each other in joy and in vulnerability. We promise to grow and change, and in the years to come, find new ways to love and be loved. 

And if I was thinkin’ I’d be thinkin’ thank God, whoever you are

For the muse and the miracle right here in my arms

Times like these so sweet and so true

Thinkin’s the last thing that you wanna do.

Thinkin’s the last thing that you wanna do.

And then we kiss! 

We have French toast for breakfast, made for us by a friend. We nap. We sit on the porch. We make our friends a labor-intensive pan of moussaka and we make cake. We delight in the day. 

In the evening, we go swimming in the lake as the sun sets. He holds me up in the water, and I float, weightless, humming my contentment. We speak softly to each other while moving through the warm water. Our daughter sways with me, and I tell him about her movements. “We’re married,” we say to each other over and over again, with laughter and awe - reverence and celebration.

We’re married.

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