anniversary

Two years ago, P. and I set off from midwestern parts unknown across the country. We were headed towards California. We made a number of stops along the way-- in Wyoming, in Colorado, in Utah, in Arizona, in Nevada, and we saw mountains and deserts and strange red rock formations neither one of us had ever seen before. When we got to the ocean, at last, we found a nice beach, got a marriage license, met with a minister, and then, June 14, we got married. It was a small ceremony. No parents, just a few friends and ourselves, barefoot in the sand and in the late afternoon just before the sun slipped down into the waves. We stayed in California for a month, studying, then packed up again and made the journey back again, which was just as beautiful, if not somewhat more rushed.

That trip and those days are still so fresh in my mind, it's hard to believe it's been two years.

The days before the wedding, I was jittery. A few of our friends had flown in to celebrate with us, and we'd gone out for dinner that night. In the confusion of deciding who was going to sleep where, a tired friend of mine got a little snippy with me. I felt terrible. And so P. stayed the night with me, the way he'd been doing so many time before, and he consoled me, and lay with me, and somehow made everything better. The next morning I was perfectly calm. Serene, even. P. still talks about it. We married just the way we wanted to, and it was perfect.

Months before that, we'd been planning a wedding in my parents' home town. Our vision and theirs just didn't resemble each other at all. Parents wanted their So. Baptist church and their minister which was particularly hard for P., who is not at all religious. The reception would be held in a stuffy location downtown. The night my father started asking me about colors, we decided to elope. We tried inviting my parents, but they didn't want to come. They gave us two choices: the wedding the way they wanted it, or eloping (which they were fine with) without them. I'm still a hurt they didn't want to come, but I'm so relieved we decided to do things our way. When I think back on our wedding, I have lot of good feelings about it, and that freedom that came from stepping away from the parents was part of it.

Tomorrow I'm flying in to see them and my brother, his wife, and my exceedingly cute niece. I'm nervous, as I always get with these parental visits, and this ache of wedding past I still seem to be carrying with me doesn't help things. But P., darling P. (who just stepped out of the bathroom, naked and spiky-haired to check on me) will be here when I get back, and there's really no one better to be coming back to.