Wedding in a Week and a Book Baby

On Sunday, April 10, I turned to Tony halfway through our hippie church service and whispered, "hey, wanna get married here next week?" He sure did. And why not? He's about to start a new job, we're selling two houses and buying a third, and I'm prepping for a TEDx Talk plus have my book baby out on submission, and so why the hell not UPROOT EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE?

A week later, on Sunday, April 17, we swapped vows in front of 70 of our closest friends and family (and yes, that is some legally- and religiously- sanctioned ass-grabbery you're seeing below; squeeze it like you own it, amirite?). Our getting hitched went off without a hitch. Almost all our important people made it, and the weather was gorgeous. Our scrappy and brilliantly-talented photographer friend Cindy offered to take photos. Christine shared stories and a poem that had the entire church in laughter then in tears. Kellie sang <i>At Last</i> so powerfully, so personally, that Tony and I held each other and cried. Tony's sisters read the Apache Wedding Blessing and personalized it with a perfectly-delivered <i>The Princess Bride</i> reference, my mom worked her kitchen magic on a mountain of tender, perfectly-seasoned pulled pork and a dozen different desserts, and everyone brought sides and flowers and wine even though we said no gifts.

Voila! A wedding in a week.

Afterward, Tony suggested I write a book so others can plan their own weddings on the cheap (money- and time-wise). I said it'd be more like a pamphlet, but you know what? It's a sentence: Find the person who makes you feel safe, adored, and loved, the person who doubles down when the going gets tough, makes you laugh, and is committed to a lifetime of evolution, add amazing family and friends, get lucky on the weather, and celebrate the good like your life depends on it.

Hmm. I might have stumbled onto the recipe for LIFE.

Which is funny because you know what? A big hairy part of me was sure I'd never get married again, even as I said yes to Tony's proposal last December. I'd experienced a dramatic shitstorm the only other time I'd tried it, and the thought of inviting that depth of pain into my life, my kids' life, fired up my lizard brain. My lizard brain always brings the fear wrapped in a deceptively reasonable package, you know?

Here's the deal, though. Fear is an amazingly helpful emotion when our physical safety depends on it--when we are walking alone at night, or when we're choosing whether or not to wear a seatbelt or to eat pufferfish. But outside of protecting our bodies, fear is USELESS. Worse than useless. It's a joy-thief. When not needed for physical survival, fear is a parasitic emotional squatter that looks like the child snatcher from <i>Chitty Chitty Bang Bang</i> (warning: link NSFW). Fear might be the loudest and the strongest of emotions, but since when has that been a good criteria of who you want to spend the night with?

Laying all that out spurred me to develop a new rule: if it's not about protecting my body, I'm not going to listen to fear. You know how I know this is one of the life lessons I'm supposed to learn? Because the second I adopted that rule, Life gave me all sorts of opportunities to practice. Take my Book Baby, the first nonfiction book I've written, which is currently out on submission. It's the book that explains how I took the facts of my life--the shame-filled, the fearful, the funny--and turned them into fiction, transforming myself in the process. My personal experience is woven with neat and sweet instructions for anyone else who would like to reprocess their pains and pleasures and "you'll never believe what happened to me"s into compelling fiction.

I'm proud of that book, really proud. So why am I listening to the fear that is whispering (and it's the hot, meat-scented whisper of that guy you never should have gone on a date with because now he's talking through the whole movie) that this book won't find a publisher? Why am I accepting, even in my head, that conservatively-wrapped fear gift known as back-up planning (if/when the book doesn't find a publisher, I can always self-publish, and...)? Why am I hedging my hopes and my bets and generally living small, and calling it common sense?

Dangit, NO.

I am tuning out fear, even if I need to tune it out again 30 seconds later. OK, 10 seconds. But practice makes perfect, right? It's time to clear room for joy in my heart and abundance in my brain. They're the ones I want to spend the day with. I'm done borrowing trouble. (But I'll take cake if you have some.)

Big love to you.

p.s. I know it's only been three days, but marrying Tony is one of the best decisions I've ever made. Typing that makes my eyes get all hot, which is the equivalent of full-on happy sobbing for all you non-Midwestern-of-German-descent people out there. The marriage hasn't changed our relationship in any perceptible way, but it has filled in all these cracks that I hadn't known were there. I now have this amazing, solid foundation which makes everything else seem possible.

Cheers to silencing fear.

Turns out there's lots of good stuff out here beyond the cave.

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