My nephew is getting married on Sunday. As a married man without children (a decision I surrendered to a couple of decades ago) I think it is one of the most important events in a person's life. I remember prior to my big day how I imagined being in a committed relationship in this way would be like. I just thought it would be like a deepening and a continuation of how our relationship was at that time, and it was just a formality.
I was wrong.
My wife and I got married in Hawaii, on the island of Maui.
As long as we'd been together and as many people that knew about our decision to be in a committed relationship with each other, we still as it were eloped. We went off and did our own thing. And coming up to the big day a lot of my "man" stuff emerged. I suddenly felt scared for in my mind at that time absolutely no reason. I became easily irritable, and snapped at her many times in the days leading up to the big day.
I knew in me somewhere something was letting go, dying as it were, and it wasn't going down without a fight. I was petty and argumentative, and frankly, I applaud my wife for her resolve and resilience, because I was having a problem being around me. Thankfully, she's an amazing woman. She knew. She knew it was just my way of handling pre-marriage jitters. And again thankfully she still said "yes" at the big moment, regardless of what a jerk I'd been being the few days prior.
And when the big moment happened on that soft sandy beach on Maui, when I said those two powerful words in this ceremony that has been around since time immemorial, "I do", my whole world changed. I was no longer the same man as I was one moment ago. Even though I looked and sounded the same, I had become a different person. My life was no longer my own. I had pledged a part of it for the rest of this lifetime to another.
It remains one of the best decisions I'd ever made in my life to this point. And I still receive the blessings from that one decision every day.
I hope for my nephew the same on his big day Sunday. (I think it will be, because I know his intended, and she is pretty amazing too!)
