The crossover episode!

writing after the party

Hello!

After a stretch of days filled with long car rides, staying up until 4 a.m. to yap with Jamie, the Indiana state fair, and my bachelorette weekend full of friends and laughs and art walks and swan boats and brunch and puppy yoga and fancy dinners and coffee and friendship bracelets, I’m so happy. I’ve also lost my voice from talking so much!

I loved bringing my friends from different phases of life together! The friends that have been around for so long that I literally do not have any memories from the time before we were friends. To have them with my best friend from college! To have friends I picked in adulthood there with us, too! What a time! It was so special! I loved having all of them around one table! To find this place of merging the pieces of my life in one spot, even if it was only for two nights.

It was perfect! And it has me thinking about that feeling and how things can be so perfect even when they’re not “perfect.” Texts weren’t going through at the beginning of the weekend! The “bride” balloons didn’t fully inflate! The vibe at a bar was really off - a hairy man in an open vest trying to give out Jell-O shots from plastic syringes was not part of our plan! One of the bracelets I made broke and spilled beads on a McDonald’s floor on the way home! Every part of it was so good! It was such a great reminder that nothing in this engagement period was perfect, but it has all been so good! And the wedding is not going to be perfect! Whatever the equivalent of balloons not inflating correctly would be for a wedding that isn’t going to have any balloons might happen! We took pictures with the half-inflated balloons! We ended up limbo-ing under them! Everything was perfectly fun and full of love this weekend, and all I can hope for from the wedding is the same thing!

I’m so lucky to have so many people who help make the special times as special as they can be!

Speaking of things that are not perfect: this is the first time I didn’t send this letter out at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, and somehow, I’m still alive! I didn’t perish from breaking my own arbitrary deadline! I was tired! Adam was leaving for a work trip right around 9 a.m., and I wanted to hang out with him instead of writing! So, here we are. A little later than usual, but still with a poem! A draft:

THE DRIVE HOME FROM THE PARTY 

like a wet cloth on a lipstick stain
or the first hug hello
like watermelon from the fridge
after a day in the sun 
which is to say the touch of comfort
the shape of it dense
as cheesecake, as rain-wet sand
and i keep talking and talking
like i could come down
trying to hide the start of a smile
what i'm saying is i love you
like i'm always saying
legs stretched out like an answer
and i'll keep going forever
if it means you will too