So many people, who mean so very much to me, are getting married this summer!
Tomorrow I celebrate the marriage of my amazing sister in-law (also Vanessa!) and her fabulous fiancé Joe.
It’s going to be a day of magic and marvel, of love, laughter, and light.
(I am also pretty excited to be emceeing the reception – all the jokes and witticisms are belong to me! Plus I just can’t wait to lead a toast to the happy couple.)
So in celebration of all the nuptials that currently make up my life, I encourage you all to give your special someone a extra tight hug, an extra long kiss, and just let them know how brilliant it is to have them in your life.
Because what, if nothing else except love, makes this world go round?
No matter how hard I try to focus on one single moving, sentimental, emotionally wrenching moment that my sisters, mum, and I have shared, the first thing that always pops into my mind is this: a snap shot of us sitting on our the living room floor, parked in front of the roaring gas fireplace, Christmas day eve.
My little sister is eating a bowl of bran buds cereal.
She sits cross-legged on a lavender and brown floor rug, her roomy sweatpants covered in cat hair. What is left of her Christmas day finery is swamped by a large, black hoody and the thick, knit scarf she received in her stocking earlier that morning is looped loosely around her shoulders and neck.
A Christmas cracker crown sits on top of her head, lopsided, sagging slightly to the right side, like the droopy smile of a dreaming child. Her back rests up against the steamer truck my mother uses as a coffee table and she is laughing so hard, tears repeatedly spring to the corner of her eyes; one after the other the come, each taking the place of the others that are now streaming down her cheeks and dropping to the floor.
Her face flushes deep scarlet and as the trill of her giggles descends in pitch from high heehees to low hohos, I catch an eyeful of all the freshly masticated bran that sits dead square inside of her mouth.
My mother, my older sister and I are all laughing as well. Jessi has been complaining for a couple of days that she hasn’t had a good “go” in almost a week, and is worried about the lack of fibre in her daily diet. After a solid twenty-four hours of hearing about our sibling’s lack of progress in this sensitive, intestinal department, we’ve decided that the digestion of one big bowl of roughage should not only help her out, but should also be a family affair.
At first reticent to the idea, as clearly emphasized by her emphatic “don’t-look-at-me!” pleas, Jessi eventually wholeheartedly embraces this experience, and even acts the color commentator to her progress, using her spoon as microphone.
(All of this happens in-between her bursts of gut-busting laugher.)
As Jessi slowly makes her way through her late evening snack, she pauses a moment, dries her eyes, and lets us know, unequivocal in her sincerity, that she really hopes that this endeavour will work in her favour.
We let her know that we too, are rooting for her.
And she’s set off again, laughing so hard we have to give her a swift whack on the back. Little flecks of bran that originally flew down the wrong tube are quickly assigned a new trajectory, and their landing pad sits clear across the living room. A bedazzled reindeer get the worst of these food fireworks.
Our cat Simon, skittish on a good day, beetles quickly under the nearest sofa, spooked by Jessi’s demonic half-cough, half-cackle. His increasingly whacko behaviour has me more than certain he is only half-cat.
After a few sips of water and a more tempered back rub, Jessi picks up her spoon and takes another bite of her now soggy, limp buds.
“That was a little scary, she says. She pauses before continuing. “I would never want to die constipated, full of bran.”
Oh how we roar, alongside the flickering flames of the festively-decked fireplace, on that Christmas day in the evening.
This past Monday I began a new adventure, at a new place of work.
As it is anytime you start a fresh assignment in life, the transition has been exciting, and a little nerve wracking, overwhelming, and just downright fun.
I am someone who never really likes to do anything without being, well, incredibly versed in whatever it is that I am doing (aka I am a foolhardy perfectionist), so starting out as the new gal is always a bit of a learning curve for me.
It never really does get easier, but my belief in myself and my abilities has grown as I have also grown (older), and so I do have an easier time coping with the pressure that I put on myself.
But I have a confession to make.
Perhaps not exactly a confession, but an addendum (or perhaps the opposite of an addendum?) to this tale –
I quit my old job before I had secured my current position.
I’m not sure if any of you remember, but about five thousand years ago I wrote about the fact that I had “a secret” – something that I desperately wanted to share with all of you, but couldn’t for reasons (annoyingly) that I couldn’t divulge.
My plan had been to put in my notice with my old employer, take the summer to both spend time with Marc, and finally take a moment to think about what it was I wanted to do in the next phase of my career.
I had tentatively been putting together a project plan around starting a non-profit focused on providing writing and theatre opportunities for young women here in New Westminster, and had also planned on doing public speaking for Big Sisters through the United Way in the fall.
However, nothing had actually been set in stone.
I would be throwing caution to the wind, jumping into the void, and using all the other available clichés I could think of, to take the biggest (professional) risk of my relatively young career.
Many people sought to tell me that handing in my notice with no concrete job prospects, or guarantee of income was more than a little scary.
But despite this, I knew that leaving my old position was the best thing I could do for myself.
Sure, what they were telling me was, for all intents and purposes, correct. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I had some trepidation thinking about the unknown – but I also received an incredible amount of energy, excitement, and giddiness thinking about it.
In the end I trusted my abilities to succeed far more than I did my occasional stomach twinges of anxiety.
I knew that something would come up.
And in the end something did.
Just five days after handing in my letter of resignation, my current job was posted.
Nine days later the position was mine.
I am still incredulous at the serendipitous nature of the whole process – but hey, in the end you’ve got to just trust your instincts, right?
Because in the end, you are the only one who knows what will make you the happiest – whether that means staying until you find your next step, or jumping out of that plane knowing for certain that the parachute will unfold – it’s best to follow your head, heart, and gut.
(But just check to see if the parachute is indeed there. That might be good too.)
Contemplating jumping off a cliff. JUST KIDDING! (Hiking in Oregon – more on that this Friday!)
Bride!
Rant and Roll 