This post is about another 40licious bride, my friend Lisa. Now, Lisa is much, much older than I am -- we met when I was 4, and she was 5. She moved into the apartment downstairs and from that day forward, we did everything together. Being a grade ahead, she'd come home and teach me what she'd learned -- shoe-tying, time-telling, cursive (and later on, some unmentionable skills).
Over the course of our lives, we've gone through all goods and bads together. Huge mistakes and giant triumphs. She's been in school longer than anyone I know ... I think it's been the last 18 years or so. Together we've woven a story of cross-country moves, crazy loves, deep sadnesses, health scares, teenage personal safety madness, children who would not see life, adored families, and a full bank of shared memories (sometimes we need to borrow from each other).
By the time you are 40licious, most of your friends have been married already; many of them are divorced and working on #2, or happily riding the single wave. I was there for Lisa's first as we walked through blueberry fields together to meet her groom; we were also on vacation together in Florida on the day that would be the last straw of her marriage to a sweet but broken man.
A few years after, she met Sam, a much younger (really, by about 10 years) man who is an artist, a musician, a writer. His childlike enthusiasm and zeal for life is matched only by Lisa's -- together they are sweet and fun and funny and test boundaries of all things conventional.
And so it was my great pleasure to head out to Santa Fe last weekend to watch them marry in a circle, in the park, with a dozen of their closest friends surrounding them. The officiant was dressed in a toga. We all sang the theme to Sponge Bob Square Pants as they walked up to meet us. She dipped him in a kiss. And they were pronounced "wifeband."
When you are 40licious, you can have whatever the hell kind of wedding you want. And your friends will be there to cry for your happiness, and cheer you on until the bouncer turns off the lights in the pool-hall where you have your reception.
1 comment:
sweet friend, a beautiful article, though a couple of corrections..Sam is 8.5 years younger and I've only been in school for 10 years :](there have been large gaps between schoolings!)
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