I woke up early, too early and I couldn’t get back to sleep because I was so excited to marry him. Sleepless and puffy eyed I crawled out of our bed, careful not to wake him, and boiled water for tea in the kitchen. It was barely dusk, the sun hadn’t turned anything that soft shade of yellow and orange. We were still in the gray hours and when I stepped outside, hot cup of tea and notebook in hand, it was brisk, but not windy. I sat on a swinging bench, my feet curled under my knees and began to write, this is what came out.
One of my socks is inside out and I’m sitting on this bench crying, unprovoked, because I love you so much. And in this moment, despite how tired I am, despite how few hours I’ve had to metabolize last nights beer, I am so happy. An osprey soars overhead and I smile at him, geese honk and I smile at them. The trees are green, the sky and lake are reflecting endless iterations of the same color blue. There is literally no place I would rather be in this moment, wearing my pajamas while you snooze upstairs, watching the world wake up on our wedding day.
I wish I had written more, in fact, in my notebook the last sentence was left unfinished. This is because Justin had woken up, seen me out the window, and ran down to join me on the bench. We took this picture right as the sun was starting to hit the trees.
Though this wasn’t one of my more brilliant pieces, it captures a moment that I’ll always return to when thinking about our wedding. For me, writing moments down creates a stronger more visceral memory than pictures. That’s probably why I’m doing this work. I’m excited to begin again, after a brief vacation, to the job that I love. Thank you, as always for reading.