Admittedly, this blog gets pretty sappy from time to time. I’d like to be a funnier writer, but the misfortune of my writing talent is that I cannot contrive to be funny. It happens by luck sometimes, but not by design. And I’m writing about stuff that’s pretty close to my heart. But that’s especially true tonight, as I’m feeling quite het up emotionally about stuff, so those with a low tolerance for the ick factor should leave the room.
Also, I should start a tally of how many times I reference Sex and the City (see: the Ick Factor),
A lot of things are up in the air right now. It turns out visa processing for an immigrant to the US takes nine months after you get married. I love the State Department. They are amazing people who clearly do their job with minute and painstaking attention to detail.
But despite my everlasting love and admiration for INS, this leaves me and the fiance in a bit of a bind. We have been playing with options for about a week, but have nothing certain, and quite frankly, it’s killing me. When I found out other people on his team at work had snatched up all the Easter holiday, which is when I will be there for my next visit, I wanted to kill them, and also say horrible things like “I don’t care about your stupid kids. You get to see them every stupid day.”
Which is clearly not the way forward, particularly as the fiance has who I believe is one of the top 10 bosses in all of history. We should keep him happy.
The problem is really not that he’ll be working 9-5 most of the time I’m there. The problem is that I don’t know what’s going to happen to us after we get married. No doubt some of you out there are going “Er…just have a city hall marriage in the US and then the big thing in the UK. Then you can process the paperwork faster.” Not a bad idea, except, of course, the United Kingdom does not have the Bill of Rights, and therefore they *can* make laws respecting an establishment of religion, and so, thanks to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, civil and religious ceremonies are one and the same. Which means, get married at city hall and process the paperwork quicker, but give up the wedding.
And let’s be honest here, folks. My wedding is pretty kick-ass. It is everything I’ve ever wanted it to be. Plus I’ve waited 32 years to get married. With each passing year, the fuss and the flowers and the food and the fanfare become more precious, because I really feel like celebrating this.
A year ago if you had asked me if I thought I would ever get married, I would say I was sliding down the scale from ‘maybe’ to ‘probably not.’ In fact, I was already grappling with the ‘probably not’ possibility. I gave my sister a whole speech about how I wasn’t dancing around at her engagement because I was looking at a bleak future. I didn’t know I was scarcely more than a month away from meeting my future husband.
Put like this, it’s a revolution of a year. I met a guy. Then he turned out to be awesome. Then he turned out to really like me. Then he embraced all my craziness and all my nerdiness. Then we fell in love. Then he asked me to marry him. Who does that *happen* to? Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a rom com.
But it turns out love is the answer to some things, but not all things, and that on the other side of the single/ couple divide a whole host of problems lie. And here I was thinking I finally had the key to Shangri-La. I never thought I would be in a relationship and still feel like I was up against so much. Yes, the loneliness is gone, but in it’s place is a sort of desperation, the kind of thing that makes people write love poetry or characters like Bella Swan. It’s a very melodramatic feeling, hanging your life onto another person. Getting hitched is an appropriate phrase, because you do in essence hook your life up to another’s and see where it takes you. But this of course means a loss of control, and in giving that up you feel the noble sacrifice of love etc. etc.
Which all boils down to right now I’m getting married, but although we are racking our brains trying to think of ways to be together, the card that says we have to wait nine months for that is still on the table. So we could get married and then say goodbye.
Is this better than a year ago, when I thought I was looking at loneliness forever? Yes. It is. It is only temporary, no matter what, even if we do have to wait. But is it the 180 I expected? Not quite. I feel a bit cheated. I find a guy, and he’s amazing, and he’s got a sexy accent, and instead of a honeymoon, I may have to get on a plane alone. Uncool, universe. If you give me an awesome guy, I want the chance to be with him, plsthx.
I guess there’s another way to look at it though. I know now I’m living a comedy, not a tragedy. But in any comedy, there has to be complications. It’s the law of good stories. Protagonist must face obstacles to get what he/ she wants. So in this crazy movie life, I am perhaps just in the second act, when things get rough. This is my Empire Strikes Back moment. Han Solo’s frozen in carbonite, but Princess Leia goes to rescue him. That’s not a rom com, but you get the idea. Anyway, it would be even cooler if this story were an epic.
In case you were wondering, though, I will say that the second act is not a fun place to be. Mo’ money, mo’ problems.
Across the Wide Ocean 