What It’s Like to Marry Off Your Daughter 💍
...or, somehow I blinked.
I was curious how I’d feel during the first week after my firstborn’s wedding, and the honest answer is: elated, overwhelmed, and very, very tired. I had no idea how tired I’d been, and by 2:00 pm most days I crawled into bed for a mandatory afternoon nap. Who am I? I almost never take naps. It was like my body had been holding on to so much emotion, administrative mental load, and spiritual recognition that what our family was embarking this spring was a Very Very Big Deal, that once the big event finally happened, my body responded by needing to charge like a device on one percent in need of an outlet.
That week’s exhaustion hit me how much I’d actually been holding on to for the past eighteen months: my daughter’s studying abroad and meeting of her guy, getting engaged, finishing her time in college, and hosting her wedding; writing my most important (to me) book to date (and then edits so big I basically rewrote the whole thing a second time); finishing my final year of homeschooling for my second-born, helping him navigate the college admissions process, keeping him on task with scholarship applications in order to afford his first-choice university, helping him finally get his driver’s license and first job (these things take a bit longer for him with his autistic challenges); plus still running our local co-op and teaching my class (focusing on a historic era I don’t teach often, so I had to create a lot of new lesson plans for books that needed dusting off). Plus carrying the weight of aging parents and their health issues, continuing on with our forever home renovation and managing the funds for said projects. Oh, and plus planning for and promoting this summer’s pilgrimage, spinning my many volunteering plates at our local parish, and all this along with the usual rigamarole of keeping our bills paid each month and dinner on the table night after night.
When I’m tempted to wonder why I’ve been so much quieter in my newsletter here this past year (which is not my preference), I simply need to step back and recognize all that God has asked me to carry the past year and a half—and then I’m not surprised in the least. Yes, writing is part of my job, and that includes this newsletter. But when real life beckons, hitting publish on words takes a backseat, even when they’re simmering to a near-boil on the back burner.
The honest truth is that most of the reason I haven’t been as prolific on here as I’ve been in the past is because my real, offline life is much sweeter, richer, and more fulfilling than any semblance of life online. I check Substack, and it doesn’t take me long to want to close out the app—it’s so painfully obvious how much ‘grasping’ is going on; people begging for relevance and reposts, staking their identity on being mentioned by others so they can justify all their time and brainspace spent on the platform. There are exceptions, of course; I want Shawn Smucker to write poetry all day, and I’m so buoyed by Lore Wilbert’s recent expose into her heart and writing situation, as heartbreaking as it is. I want Hadden Turner to muse on digital paper what it’s like to live in the Yorkshire Dales as much as he’s willing to give us, and I will stop whatever I’m doing whenever Jess Pan hits publish, as rare as that occasion is (a practice of hers, intentional or not, for which I applaud).
The best writers are the ones who do other things besides write. At minimum, this is because they have something to say. I remember back in 2018, when I was first asked to teach at my kids’ school, that my first concern was a wipeout of my time and focus on writing. Turns out dedicating part of my waking hours to class prep, teaching, and grading did nothing but make my writing sharper and my time-management more effective; this is because we need to be people with multi-dimensional, flesh-and-bone, dirt under the fingernail lives in order to be worth any pixels we publish. I don’t mind people earning a living off their writing; I do, too. But if they want to earn my hard-earned attention, they need to do more with their lives than think of their next essay topic and scroll feeds in order to know what to say next to please the algorithmic gods.
I have nothing to say about AI that hasn’t been said ad nauseam in every. single. essay I’ve been shown the past few weeks. I’d rather tell you about the sparrow that just landed on my table here next to my mint cold brew in a mason jar, its beak full of microscopic twigs, which I imagine it will bring to its nest-in-the-making in the tree behind me. I’d rather wonder why the morning light hits different this time of year, and I don’t mean ‘hits different’ in a soul way, I mean literally hits differently on the walls of my living room as the sun peeks its way into the neighborhood, orange and waking up the people who live within my four walls and tells our new rooster, who was not that long ago a pullet on its way to life as an egg-laying hen with the rest of his flock, to clear his throat and begin his pubescent crow. (Related: anybody need a rooster?)
I want to tell you about how one of my favorite baristas is due with her first baby in mid-September, which makes me wonder whether she’ll return to the coffee shop afterwards or if her days here are numbered (good for her, sad for me). I prefer to tell you about the delightful encounter Kyle and I just had a few hours ago, wherein we met a reader of mine who’s in town with her husband and who came to this coffee shop because she read me waxing poetic about it (I promise I do other things besides come to this coffee shop... but I do come here an awful lot). We parted ways and Kyle asked me to find out where she got her husband the t-shirt he was wearing, because it’s a little nod to Pearl Jam and we are part of that Oregon Trail, Star Wars, in-between Gen-X and Milennial generation that prides itself on generational homelessness. I also want to tell you how dadgum friendly our neighborhood is, and how half the time when I’m at this coffee shop I overhear conversations between fellow patrons either catching up like long-lost war buddies or meeting each other for the first time, sharing likeminded perspectives of their canine companions and concert tees and becoming fast friends.
And mostly right now, because it’s really all I’ve been thinking about the past two weeks, I want to tell you about what it’s like to now have a married daughter, and how strange it is to now be suddenly thrust into this stage of life. The two of us are as close as its possible to be in a healthy adult child-parent relationship (at least, I hope so, and is my now longstanding fervent hope and prayer), which means our closeness now looks different. She was already on her own in many ways, having gone to college a thousand miles away, studied abroad, and generally came equipped with an independent, can-do spirit that’s often the case for firstborn daughters (especially those who spent their earliest years as a third-culture kid). But I’ve still been her go-to person for her thoughts and reflections on life, and that person now needs to be her husband. This is good, and how it should be, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy and it doesn’t mean it’s a seamless transition. It’s an inner journey that, two years ago, I didn’t know I’d be taking right now, that’s for sure. It involves so much prayer that my knees are battle-bruised and I’m forced to bring to Jesus all my needs to remember whose I am and what’s my purpose in life, first and foremost.
As for the wedding itself—I never knew I could feel in my bones such unadulterated joy. Hokey and clichéd, I know, but it’s true. For days afterward I rode the ripples of joy from the all-too-quick plunk in the water of the Saturday afternoon wedding we’d been planning for months. The whole week after, my eyes would water without my permission at the remembrance of the tiniest moment from that day: getting to drive to the church, just my daughter, her dad, and me, as we were given the unexpected gift of relishing together in her last twenty minutes as a single woman. How she and I were whisked off to the quiet room off to the side of the narthex so her groom couldn’t see her, which meant two sweet minutes of just the two of us to quickly pray and then spy on who all was there in attendance.
The whole week after, I’d play my playlist that echoes a mix CD a friend of ours made us as a gift for our honeymoon, and a song would conjure up a memory from our own week post-wedding, smacking me in the face how quickly time really does fly.
One minute, and I’m begging my two-year-old, for the love of all that’s holy, to stop drawing on the walls of our Turkish apartment, and the next minute, I’m watching her walk down the aisle with her dad at her arm. I know all the pintucked alterations done on the dress she’s wearing, lovingly sewn by my mother, and I wonder if the shoes she’s wearing are pinching her toes. She’s holding the bouquet she made two days ago in our living room with her bridesmaids, who’ve all come from out of town to stand with her, and she’s wearing my own veil that she tweaked a month ago with a needle and thread while she sat on our couch and watched a movie. She and I traded necklace chains so hers could sit at a better spot on her décolletage, and it does indeed make her dress’ neckline pop, just like she hypothesized.
Behind me right now at the coffee shop as I write, a gaggle of little kids are collecting snails and making Very Serious Plans to build their snail village—it was two weeks ago when my own daughter, too, built Terabithias and Roxaboxens and critter compounds and stick forts with her siblings and new best friends from the playground. …But that can’t be, because actually two weeks ago, I watched her bond with girlfriends who span all different stages of her life, dance to Tom Petty with her dad, and I threw potpourri in her face as she ran off, smile plastered on her face while I wondered how very tired she must also be feeling since I was there with her all week, holding the hand of her new husband who then whisks her off in his four-door sedan painted with ‘Just Married’ on the back windshield. They drive off and I wave goodbye.
And then, Kyle and I rolled up our sleeves and cleaned up alongside all the friends and family who graciously stayed to help. I changed out of my handmade dress and back into shorts and t-shirt, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and gathered flowers, charcuterie trays from the bridal suite and groomsmen changing rooms, leftover curling irons and oxford button-downs, and the black-and-white framed photos on display for the ‘Love Stories Before Ours’ family wedding gallery. I pause again to look at my own, the one of my husband and me hugging in our white dress and tuxedo, very aware on this side of things of how in love we were and how, by all accounts, how very little we really did know each other. Isn’t that just the way? We stand before God and community to promise each other our fealty until death do us part, and what a step of faith that is. We have no idea what’s coming, all the stretch marks and bills and budget-friendly date nights in the living room after the kids are asleep and late-night bedroom chats about how the teens are doing, and how not knowing what’s all in store is probably for the best.
After we throw away what needs tossing and pack up what needs taking, the caravan of vehicles leave for where they need to go. Kyle and I leave last, and the required security officer and venue representative can finally leave. But Kyle pauses, makes a little turn, and heads back to the venue once the coast is clear. He parks, the two of us get out, and we head back to the meadow behind the old Tuscan house we just rented for its required twelve hours, now empty, and for which we still have twenty minutes left. He laces his fingers in mine, and we sit on a back limestone stoop, where minutes ago we watched our daughter and her husband have their first dance, and now we watch the orange sun paint the sky purple.
“We did it,” he says. I lean my head on his shoulder.
We sit in silence, playing back the joy of the day, of all the toasts and cheers and congratulations from friends. And I play back all the diaper changes, three a.m. nursing sessions, stroller walks, lunches made, middle school friend drama-fueled hugs, inconveniently-timed conversations about whether God really is good, and late-night waits in bed to hear the front door open as she comes home from a high school date.
“Yeah,” I reply, “...We did it.”
The two of us stand up, briefly twirl like we’re still dancing, kiss, and walk back to the car. Our twelve hours are now up. So are our two-plus decades. We are asked to move on, and so we do.
We drive home. The next morning, I make bacon and eggs for my daughter’s brothers, both still at home for at least a few more months.
The days are long but the years are short.
This was so moving. All the feels and I love how much joy you experienced! I hope it lingers for a long, long time for all of you!
The pictures are lovely!
You're very kind, friend. Thank you. And what a beautiful event, beautiful bride, beautiful life. And I can so relate with the tiredness around ALL THE EVENTS. And the tug of real life. Keep napping, keep writing. I'm a huge fan of your family and I am rooting for all of you.