I am afraid of getting Malaria. So afraid that before traveling to India and Costa Rica I obsessed over TOX reports evaluating DEET and the effects it and Malaria (as well as treatments for Malaria) have on developing fetuses in various stages of pregnancy.
I am afraid of getting eaten alive by sharks. So afraid that when I swim from the shores to the cove I swim with my head down and I swim very slow because I am looking for sharks, the big sharks.
At one time in my life I was afraid to get married. Afraid that I wouldn’t be able to live up to my vows and that I would make promises that I wouldn’t be able to keep. So afraid that one day I packed my bags and ran away, down the highway in Napa, away from the direction of a wedding.
There is an evening I remember so clearly when my dear friend told me the best day of her life was her wedding day. I remember thinking ‘Wow that sounds like the scariest day of my life. She must not be afraid of anything’.
This May I found myself standing at the altar of the ocean and I was not afraid. I knew without a doubt that I wanted to marry this man since the day I yelled it on the top of my lungs on the beach, our secret beach. Nothing about the wedding was scary. Not the planning, not the promises, not the sound of my own voice in the microphone. I’ve said it a million times: It’s not the fear of getting married; it’s the fear of marrying the wrong man.
He is the right man.
Every part of that wedding night was magic; it was the best day of my life. Rather, the best 1.25 years of my life devoted to the celebration: bridesmaids’ boat days on the bay, dress shopping, bachelorette weekends in Santa Barbara, bachelor camping trips, make-up consultation breakfasts, rehearsal taco dinners in the back yard…not to mention seeing my friends and family constantly, to plan, chat in parking lots, and investigate details. Details that were meaningless…what color for this, what flavor for that? Meaningless only because no matter what we would have chosen, the choice would have been perfect. What were meaningful details were the times that we got to spend together. Sure things went wrong but they aren’t worth mentioning, because they aren’t worth remembering. And wrong is a relative word.
There are moments I never want to forget. I am afraid that when I get older and my neurons stop firing that I will lose my memories. So afraid that I will document these moments here, just in case:
When I walked down the aisle I saw the faces of my dear friends and family so full of happiness and so full of love. When I walked down the aisle I saw him and time stopped, frozen. Like when I come home from work and he kisses me in the door way, all things fade to grey.
Time stopped again when we danced. The world disappeared, vanished like the night we heard that same song at The Gorge, the final song of the encore, when it was just us and the music. The night when I realized anything was possible because they would never play that song, it was a cover and they hadn’t played it in years. It would never happen, especially since I wanted it to. And there we were, listening to ‘The Maker’.
When I danced with my dad it was a waltz of the wind. How we pulled that together is beyond me. I watch it on video every day, sometimes twice. It makes me cry because he loves me so much. I am the cup that catches his overflowing love. Dare I say, that cup is as big as the oceans.
There was a moment I looked up and saw all the people dancing, filling up the entire floor, spilling onto the deck and up the stairs. Jumping up and down and throwing fists into the air. This is so much fun!
And the girls sang a song and danced a dance, to a poem they wrote about hearts as big as whales and love that parts the oceans all to the tune of ‘Minnie the Moocher’. In front of all those people. They did something so big, and everyone could see how big their hearts are. But this didn’t shadow the best man’s speech especially since I had just written myself that everything with this crazy couple is “so much fun and so damn funny”.
So when I think about being afraid of it all, I feel silly. In Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible the little girl hides her Malaria tablets and sticks them to the wall behind her bed. But it’s not the Malaria that kills her; it’s the bite from the green mamba. It’s never the things we worry about that get us; it’s the things we don’t expect, the things we don’t see circling below. So as hard as it is to sit on that porch in the jungle with the mosquitoes buzzing in your ears, enjoy the moment and listen to the rain. You’re not going to get Malaria.
Congo Bongo, Costa Rica
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