Crossing Oceans

My sweet blog. How I missed you. I've been trying to fill your missing void with marketing ploys disguised as personalized wedding websites, an array of Pinterest boards, losing whole days on etsy, and careful organization of  registries. How irresponsible of me.

Here is something I've leaned in the course of my engagement: 

 "You can't cross an ocean without first being brave enough to lose sight of the shore."

I am feeling reminiscent about my two weeks in Paris. On my own. The craziest, most amazing, most terrifying, most gratifying experience I've ever had.

 I could post hundreds of photos of the city of Paris or the Normandy countryside, but I chose this one. This is a picture of me at a small cafe in Paris. It was the typical cafe. Old men sat in corner with cigarettes in their fingers and low but passionate voices. There was a group of women tossing around a crevice of pink wine on the terrace. Some lone man was hunched over the bar, sipping his coffee in between a frustrated rub of his bald head.

I realized that I'm in Paris. Alone. Free to go anywhere in this magical city. I could walk down the Champs or visit the more posh neighborhoods for shopping, but I choose to be here. That's where I found Paris magic - in a small cafe where I could write in my journal, drink my espresso, and simply have no where to go. 

You might find a 20 something girl on a solo trip to Paris to be odd. But I know that this is how it had to happen. In a totally selfish way, Paris is and will always be all mine. All I had to do was cross that scary ocean, and she was mine. I can still close my eyes and see the walking path I laid out for myself every day to the river, to the metro, to the little store with the great big bottles of water. Every now and again I can smell Paris. I'm not sure if it's a piece of old clothing or the spirit of the city that are trapped in my skin. Paris gets beneath you. You never really shake it off. But first I had to cross the ocean to get there. 

I'm a terrible flyer. I hate everything about it. I hate the lack of elbow room. I hate the changes in pressure. I hate how people cut in line when exiting the plane. I hate how I always end up with ten mysterious bruises from trying to store my carry-on. I hate how that guy next to me is watching a really explicit movie on his Ipad. But it was part of crossing the ocean. I had to do it.

My engagement has been a lengthy, deep ocean that I'm only half way over. My shore that continues to fade into the blue is one of friends, total independence, melodramatic text messaging sprees, secrets, promises. 

For ten years, I've been the sketchy sidekick to fabulous ladies. In a matter of months, I'll be someone's wife. I definitely have been experiencing a mourning period of sorts for a piece of me I'm quite comfortable with. Not everything will change. That's just silly. But the other side of the ocean is marriage, an entirely new adventure I dreamed about but never thought about more deeply than the length of a Martha Stewart bridal magazine. 

No one tells you that so much of an engagement is letting go. Letting old ghosts go, letting go of old visions of what a wedding looks like, letting go of some of your principled stands for the happiness of another, letting go of those strange encounters when people go out of their way to hurt your feelings about your marriage. 

That happened. 

The letting go is the last step on this journey. It's the losing sight of the shore. I can still see my shore --with my old apartment, my friends sitting on the couch, my closet with shoes sprawled out on the floor from going out the night before -- but it's dwindling. I had to let go of my fears and inhibitions to find myself like I did in Paris, and now there are only a few more things to part ways with to cross my ocean. This time, unlike Paris, someone else is waiting on the other side.