The Terrible & the Beautiful

While we were away, attending my sister-in-law’s wedding, there was one moment from that entire experience which resonated with me the most having now returned to my “normal” life.

It was the night before the wedding. Another set of family members had arrived to find their awaiting accommodations in the cabin we all stayed at infested with ladybugs. In the chaos of trying to find them alternative accommodations, especially as the evening drew to a close with the final moments of preparation before the big day–a mass of people filled the cabin with their cacophony of voices echoing throughout the wooden vaulted ceilings.

One of those voices was my own. I had been speaking with one of my husband’s aunts about the best part of marriage when the bride-to-be plotzed down in an armchair next to us asking, “Tell me: what is the best part of marriage?”

Now, my sister-in-law was already a divorcee. That whirlwind romance wasn’t traditional by any means. This time, I could tell she genuinely wanted to do things right by her second marriage. I think, too, the strain of the wedding planning wore on her and her groom, that day in particular with blows being exchanged between them.

Shocked out of my conversation with Aunt Verna, I turned to look at my sister-in-law. Her glass of white wine in hand, she stared up at me, eyes beseeching, pleading, with words unspoken. It felt as if in that moment whatever I said next would help determine her resolve to see through her commitment to the vows she hoped to take tomorrow afternoon.

My mouth gaped open, and I paused. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes, of course.” The sarcasm did little to assuage the fear in her voice. “Tell me what you think the best part of marriage is.”

And so I told her how after only a mere three years of marriage, the best part, for me, was knowing that I was wholly and completely accepted by someone who saw every flaw, every dark deed, every ill will; every secret, every evil, every trace of every shadow; someone who knew me inside out, who stared into the void of my soul like a gaping black hole through which an entire universe lied waiting to be discovered. That through the vulnerability and pain of opening up, of exposing my innermost being to another human who was as despicable as me, as capable of betrayal, of hurting me, of seeing all my darkness and running–that he loved me as I am and accepted me.

I told her how utterly and completely terrifying it was to feel that naked before someone, to let them see me for me, and know that they loved me. How it took work, it took the strength of Sampson to surrender those hidden parts of myself, but to feel that wholeness, that acceptance, that bond of intimacy was so entirely worth it.

As I spoke, I don’t think I was imagining the firelight dancing in unshed tears welling in her eyes. Sitting on the armrest next to her was another aunt, who nodded emphatically, agreeing with what I shared. When I had finished my soapbox, Aunt Beth asked me, “So what was the most difficult part you had to overcome?”

I answered that for us, which my sister-in-law would laugh at, it was allowing someone to help us, to care for us, to be vulnerable with someone when before we were defined by our independence, our lack of need for another; that one day I woke up and realised I needed my husband. I wasn’t incomplete without him, but it wasn’t until I met him I didn’t realise I was alone. Now I knew what it meant to not be alone, and I needed it. I needed that intimacy.

I had slept, but my heart had awoken.

I no longer wanted to be alone. I wanted someone to share in this life together—I wanted him—to walk with him side-by-side. I had experienced life with him and I could not imagine my life without him. Not anymore.

My sister-in-law sat silent. She appeared to be absorbing my every word, drinking it in as if it were the elixir of life no one had yet shared with her, to strengthen her, before walking down the aisle tomorrow and undertaking the most wonderful but most terrifying experience of her entire life.

I hope what I shared meant something to her, that it helped ease whatever nerves or fears she might have been feeling in that moment. I know later that night she had a lengthy conversation over the phone with her fiancé. I could see her from my window out on the deck talking late into the night. I don’t know what they spoke about, but I do know the next day they became man and wife.