Happy Side

Having said the things I said in that last blog, I thought I'd follow it with the happy part of the story.

I married one of my best friends in the whole world. He's a great guy even with his all-too-human faults. Hopefully he thinks the same of me - except I'm a girl, not a guy. We share very many common interests and beliefs, and where we disagree, we manage to keep the peace and hold intelligent conversations on our differences.

He is from a foreign country, so I have the pleasure of expanding my horizons and learning about the world from a completely different cultural viewpoint - something that thrills and fascinates me.

The marriage came up unexpectedly (on my part at least - I had pretty much relegated him to best-friend status and decided to leave him there), and seems to have evolved from friendship into marriage at lightning speed. If we hadn't already been dating on and off for two and half years, I would think this was especially strange for me.

But, knowing the relationship we've had, and the constant battle I fight between logic and emotion, I really couldn't see this turning out any other way. Both logic and emotion found goods and bads, and both sides found that the goods outweighed the bads. Besides, Katy had already told me that I either had to accept him how he is or let him go. I'd tried that second several times and it never really took.

So how did this sudden evolutionary leap come about? I'm so glad you asked! As I said previously, we'd been a non-couple for a few months, but had remained close friends once I got beyond the urge to poke him in the eye. We kept up communication and continued to find more and more bits and pieces of each other that just fit right. I still found moments when I struggled with being frustrated by certain aspects of his personality, and he decided to ask me right smack in the middle of one of those moments. I'm pretty sure he has no idea how close he came to being eviscerated. But he survived, and I managed to say that I'd think about it.

And I did think about it. Several long and sleepless nights were spent thinking about it. Can I handle giving up my freedom and sharing this space I've created for myself? Can he take me as I am no matter what? I can be one hell of a handful sometimes and I know it. Can we truly work as the team/partnership that I view a good marriage to be? Sigh. So many things to consider, but out of all them, the one that kept shouting the loudest was "Do I really love him this much - so much that in spite of how many problems we've had I can still consider the thought of marrying him?" The answer was yes, and so I decided to take the thought processes to him and proceeded to have several long and deeply personal conversations with him about it before making my final decision.

When I finally said yes (which was really only a few days later, but with the lack of sleep and stress of tyring to make such a life-changing decision, it felt more like years) things progressed at the afore-mentioned lightning speed. Tasks to be completed: Look up info on marriage licenses; decide if this will be church or JP; decide if we will wait to involve family/friends, yada yada blah blah blah.

We just happened to pick out our wedding bands the night before we went to apply for the marriage license. Very plain and simple, but elegant (which I think is really synonymous) white gold bands. Mine hides on my hand, with my pale skin and the fact that I wear silver rings on both hands almost all the time. His shows brilliantly against his dark chocolate skin. We didn't take the day off from work because we were only getting a license - we just both arranged to come in late that day. What we'd seen on the county's website suggested that once we had our license we would still have to wait at least three days before we could get married. We figured on doing it after he came back from a business trip the following week.

To our great surprise, we were able to complete the ceremony right there in the Clerk of Court's office the very same morning. Fortunately the rings were with me in the purse I was carrying from the night before. Within 30 minutes of walking into the office for a marriage license, we were actually married. And then we both had to go to work because we hadn't taken the day off. I think the universe was looking out for him. If there had been too much of a delay, I might have found a strong enough reason to change my mind. But then, I can be pretty damn stubborn once I've made a decision. Just ask any member of my family.

We've had a little fun torturing friends and co-workers with the news. Since we work together and we both came in late, and in separate cars that day, there was already some muttering. I got there first and Yaw's supervisor was out for the day so his team didn't know he was going to be late. They asked me about it because they knew we had some kind of relationship, but they weren't sure how deep it ran. I don't think they noticed the ring right away. It might not have been until the following week that they asked if he'd gotten married. He told them yes, but didn't say to whom. They obviously hadn't observed my hand, with an identical ring to his, on any of my visits to his area. He decided to prolong the torture as long as possible.

My own team never did seem to notice the ring on my hand, but like I said, I tend to wear at least two silver rings pretty much all the time. They did ask if we were back together, to which I responded with a vague sort of answer.

Last Friday night, I demanded a date night, because I can do that, and we decided to spend it having dinner at Durango's Steak House, then watching a movie. During dinner, Yaw got a call from Jim (on his team at work). He picked it up thinking there must be some emergency at work. Jim told him he was calling to tell him he was an idiot because when his wife heard that Yaw had gotten married, but wasn't telling to whom, she went online and looked up the public records on him. And there I was. Then Yaw handed me the phone so Jim could tell me the same thing.

Since the cat was out of the bag with his team, we decided to go ahead and tell the rest of our co-workers. Quite a lot of surprise and cheering ensued, which was good to hear. Then we announced it to our Hashing friends during the Superbowl halftime. When asked jokingly if I was pregnant, I said that I wasn't but Yaw was. Fortunately there had been enough beer consumed for a couple of folks to think that was actually funny. Now my Hashing girlfriends want to throw me a post-bachelorette party. I suppose that can be fun. OK, I KNOW that can be fun. I've been to some of the bachelorette flings we've had. I don't even care if I get presents - well, maybe a few presents...

So anyway, there is the happy side of the story.