I'm Alive

Whew.

Well.....hmm.

Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

I'm still in blissy zoney outerspace mode so I'll keep this brief -- M. and I just drove back from Provincetown about three hours ago, followed by copious amounts of box-carrying and stair-climbing and unpacking and sweating and sighing -- but I figure I should at least make a brief post-nuptial reappearance, if for no other other reason than to announce that I survived The Event relatively intact, vomit-free, and with a smile on my face.

I'll try to think of something brief and creative to write. How about the Top Three Things I Learned At My Wedding:

1. They love me, they really love me. Both of us. And we love them. I've never felt as completely surrounded by and filled with and drunk from love as I felt on Saturday night. This was particularly evident during the final forty-five minutes of the reception -- and the thirty minutes after that -- during which I cried in a continuous and pitiful and auditorily alarming fashion and assaulted everyone from my highschool and college and post-college friends, to my mother, our DJ, our innkeeper, and one of our hors d'ouevres waitresses with a series of sweaty, tear-soaked, sobbing embraces. I think it had something to do with the whole thing Coming To An End, although of course Doing What I Do I managed to make an unnecessarily morbid connection to the feeling I would imagine one might feel if one were to visit one's own funeral -- not because it felt like a funeral in any way, just that the feeling of quite literally having everyone one holds Most Dear in the World all under one tent, and dancing and talking and drinking and laughing and crying with them all, and being with the Man You Love and standing up with him and proclaiming your promises to him and commiting yourself to him in front of All These People, and then hearing the DJ announce the last dance, and knowing that in a matter of minutes it's all going to be over, and then in a matter of hours they're all going to be gone.......well, it's just more than a little bit overwhelming. Thankfully, I'm not dead and I'll see them all again, but the feeling was there. Gulp.





2. Wedding planning is a cruel mirage meant to keep us busy and think we're in control and prevent us from letting our attentions stray from our Betrothed. In other words, our wedding got rained out. As in, Record Rainfall. And I panicked. And the walk up the aisle was three paces instead of twenty, and instead of Posed Photos framed by sand and sailboats and sunshine we had ones framed by tent and...more tent. And and and. But, it all worked out. Just like it always does. Maybe even better than it would have otherwise, because once you get Rained Out -- or Rained In -- all bets are off, and everyone can just relax and have fun and take a load off because, let's be honest, The Wedding's Ruined, right? That's the way it felt, anyways, until everyone had the best time ever, and Goth DJ rocked the rock of all rocks, and the food was delicious, and the signature cocktails were a hit, and there were five straight hours of pure and unadulterated and did-I-mention-sweat-soaked dancing, and Everyone Loves Cannolis, and everyone talked with everyone and danced with everyone and loved everyone and why didn't I think of this, of course this is perfect, I love the rain, everyone should have such luck to be rained in under one enormous and music- and food- and booze- and love-filled tent, and I wouldn't have planned it any other way.

3. I'm a Crazy Person. This has already been established as fact. But seriously? I amped up the crazy at least 20 notches on Friday night, when I was forced to excuse myself from the Beach Blanket Barcecue to go stand in the men's room and rub my face and mentally will myself to exit the bathroom as a different, calmer, saner man. Which, predictably, had short-lived results. But by the time M. and I had led the Chicken Dance, the knots released and the butterflies died or flew away and my stomach loosened its grip on my esophagus and I Just Had Fun. Just Let Myself Have Fun. This continued, more or less, through the rest of the weekend, other than the moment when I went to hand someone something three minutes before walking down our three-foot aisle and saw for the very first time what my hand might look like if I had Parkinson's disease....but that's probably normal. The moral of the story is that, yes, I am insane, potentially certifiably so, but I am also trainable. My psychosis is maleable. I can change. Even if it's only briefly, or if I learn a Huge Lesson from simultaneous vomiting and pooping and then completely forget that lesson a mere two days later when it becomes clear that the beach blankets for the Beach Blanket Barbecue were a terrible idea and everyone may as well just go home. Because yes, I am cursed with mental illness, but part of that mental illness is Multiple Personality Disorder, which allows me to talk Groomzilla down from the ledge and swap him out with little pigtailed Susie who likes to laugh and eat cheeseburgers and do the Chicken Dance.





It's late, and I'm tired, and I need to go to bed with my new Husband -- keep saying it keep saying it keep saying it -- but, for what it's worth, and I hate to break the fifth wall and address my audience........a) Thanks for Listening, and b) It Was All Worth It.

More to follow.