A real reason to celebrate

Caleb and I got married on the 7th of December.  After a long engagement and thorough planning of a crunchy home wedding event, our actual exchange of vows was a small, quickly planned memory-making event. Previously, I had written some music for a little chamber group to play for a light-hearted exchange of music to set the scene of a ceremony of two people coming together, we planned a rough idea for food, and how to deck out the fire pit area, and wanted a mix-tape mashup with Britney Spear’s ‘Breathe’  playing as we danced a previously rehearsed choreographed number in heels, what our handfasting rope ritual would look like (just us, all our guests around us, both, some other variation), and I literally had planted trees to allow for a natural sectioned-off gathering place to be defined.  Planning and going through a bigger ceremony of love and celebration was an event I was truly looking forward to.  I was visualizing it as a secondary means to reset, renew, or reinvigorate some of the connections with people I was hoping would be there.  It felt like a good place to engage in just lightness and love in all places.

In the end, Caleb just wanted to get a justice of the peace and have his sister and mom attend.   It felt easier and less stressful for him. I agreed.  What I was looking forward to most was really just looking into his eyes and exchanging vows we came up with.  I didn’t care about anything around it.  In the end, Caleb picked out a covered bridge, a bridge we visited together on our first year together, on the first visit to Vermont I brought him.  It was a beautiful thought.  

I was a little sense when we got there that day.  I was worried about if Caleb’s dad would not show up and it would be a thing. I didn’t know the Justice of the Peace, and worried if she would show up on time.  I wanted everything to play out smoothly for Caleb and I think I was trying to play cool when I may have shown some inner tension.  We got there, and everything was lightly covered in a fresh dusting of snow and it fell from the sky in a magickal type of way.  It fell so silently...little puffs of light airless chunky flakes...each one seemed to linger towards the ground hesitantly.

We exchanged vows, and I got the look into his eyes during that process...the kind of look at each other that affirmed ‘I can see you’.  There was an adrenaline that pumped through my system in this moment, not from the idea of speaking in front of a handful of others, but from a flood of thoughts about who he is, who I am, where we have been, where we were going to go, the depth of what he means to me, appreciation, gratitude, union, promises, love, unknown beyonds we wound grow together.  This adrenaline had me smiling in a way that I felt pained with how intense it was.  I had to pace myself as I wanted to remember the moment.  I wanted it to last as I also wanted the little event to last longer.  I embraced how special and lucky I felt as I saw the wide grin on his face and an actual shimmer in his gorgeous big brown eyes. In the world of a person with the constant worry of anxieties, it was a profound moment to be able to stand there in the present...to feel monumental in a constant still moment...with focus on letting go of fears of who I could be seen as...it was just a rawness I sank into and treasured.

*fast forwards in recalling the day* We went to eat together at a local town establishment. We crowded around a small table, and I sat next to my HUSBAND in a renewed sense of security and assertion that I had a place to belong to.  A family, by extension, that came by someone signing off that I deserved a permanent seat at the table.  I remember looking around that small table, making small talk about a peanut butter burger with my father-in-law, Bruce, watching my niece not understanding why she was there, a sister-in-law engaging us collectively as though she was presenting a formality of us as a verifiable unit, ...a husband being his filtered type of self around his family, but I was there thinking something like ‘I get to know ALL the sides to Caleb’...he’s like my special little secret gift...I get to hear all the tones and expressions and know I will sign off for him at that moment ...we will follow up in private where I will double down on how I share support on him and saw/heard the shit that I saw/heard as he did.  At one point, I excused myself for the restroom, and I went into the single-use space and just smiled...and cried.  Love, security, affirmation, ...so much positive that it made little drops of gratitude leak from my eyes...so much excitement to the process.  I came back to the table and Caleb asked if I was okay, his mother seemed to look at me in a way to ponder why he was asking, and it was just another example of how someone could just read me and take me for me.  I said something about the extra horseradish on my cocktail and we launched into awkward small talk about ...horseradish and jalapenos and how they are better homegrown from store-bought... *lol*

*fast forwards in recalling the day*

The in-laws came to our house.  I went outside with the niece...this photo was snapped.  She doesn’t know who I am at this age...or really even now, haha  ...but I ADORE her.  I actually love all my nieces and nephews, but in years prior some of them were told to call me ‘Uncle’...which I appreciated but felt very Jewish about it...I felt it was like a label to serve as an omen to the failed status as their official uncle.  This day, I crossed that finish line of worry.  ...weird story in the weeds...but that feeling led me to talk to my niece, Jordyn.  I talked with her, like she was an adult, about how she is not going to remember this particular day which is fine.  BUT I shared with her how I was excited to get to know who she was going to grow up to be, and to have more memories as a family, and how I hoped she would feel comfortable to come to visit me and her Uncle Caleb if she ever needed a break from her life- that we would be a place to come and regroup.  It was a second powerful moment in the day...a very distant second...but it was still powerful.

(Since this day...I also wear this snowflake zip-up hoodie at some point on our anniversary.  It’s like an extra ‘hug’ to the special day.)

Caleb has since shared how he wants to bring the traditional annual anniversary gift themes into our celebration. 

I loved it.  It was cliché and cheesy...but in the best of ways...and the ways that made me feel shy and also proud that I synced with someone who likes this type of traditional couple stuff.  <33333333333

This year ‘leather’ was where both the traditional and contemporary years counted as the same gift.  So he got a (p)leather belt.  *shhhh* don’t tell him!

For me, I have made a tradition to just write thoughts on love and appreciation.  I like this weird idea that I put love to the larger community by sharing the love I have in my life.  How I symbolically do this is by writing little thoughts I jot down on scraps of paper over the year.  I then weed out my top favorites and string them together into a silly little narrative.  In-person, we go over them together on the 7th, but I also put down those thoughts on paper with broader love quotes and self-love ideas...and put it in an envelope addressed to my inspiration in finding love in life and leave it at the place we got officially married.  My idea is that it either sits there as a memento of respect that I honor the marked place as a sacred place of love and hope (at a time I was able to embrace them and know I am capable to not be an anxious ball of worry)...but I also know that some nosy person may come to the letter, open it, and might find some sense of appreciation that love can come to you in places and vessels you don’t plan on finding.  This latter part might not be the clearest to explain, but honoring the space this time of year is important to me.

I didn't think the marriage ceremony was actually going to change anything too much, but that rather short window of time changed a lot...and created a space to come back to...grow out from.

Good Goddess, do I love Caleb!!! Today is a real reason to celebrate life!

My current (visual) ear worm:

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