| The alarm went off at 6, and our wedding was at 1. I lay in bed, pink sparkle painted on my toes and the rehearsal dinner fully settled in my stomach. I heard the alarm clock buzz and remembered the date, yet stayed put, calculating the exact amount of time I needed to prepare for my day, my wedding day. The bridesmaids wouldn’t arrive until 8. I could eat breakfast while my hair was being curled. By partially opening my eyes and gazing across the room, I could see the shadows of everything that had been set out the night before and joyfully realizing that dressing would take no time at all.
It was 6 in the morning. I lay in bed, hours from getting married, and at the sound of my alarm, I hit snooze and dozed for nine more minutes.
I’ve admitted this detail to few people. They tend to be shocked, stupefied and sometimes a little worried. “What? Really?” I told a bridesmaid, and she expressed doubt. “Aren’t you supposed to be more excited than that?” Then, in a hushed tone, she added gently, “What do you think that says about your marriage?”
The truth is, I push snooze every morning. No occasion is too magnificent. This is also true: I pushed snooze on my wedding day because the ceremony was at 1, and I had stayed up until well past midnight. I pushed snooze on my wedding day because I felt like I needed a few extra minutes of beauty sleep before I paraded down the aisle in all my girlhood glory. I lay in bed complete with the knowledge that I was going to marry Jericho in a matter of hours. Since I met him, I have not been the least bit nervous. That’s the effect he has on me. No anxiety, just pure delight.
But with the skepticism I’ve received from my friends, I wonder, was my behavior on the morning of our wedding peculiar after all? Are there no other brides who would dare to pull such a stunt? And by exhibiting such behavior, should I be concerned about an institution that I so completely believe in? It seems that we constantly look for signs that things are going in our favor: she calls when she says she will and therefore must be happy in the relationship; he seems good with children and will therefore make a good father someday. We are desperate to decipher cryptic gestures in order to determine the health and potential of our relationships. Marriage with a snooze button beginning can be construed as a bad sign, especially by those who already tend to doubt the happily ever after.
Sitting down to dinner with my girlfriends a few months after the wedding, I was surprised by their questions and misgivings. Because I’m the first among us to marry, they inquired about the truth over daiquiris. A few of them had heard from friends of newlyweds whose marriages were not at all what they had expected. One had a husband who took her to a fast-food restaurant on her birthday because he had been playing basketball with friends and lost track of time. Another was pressuring his wife to have a baby while she had just begun her post-graduate school career. My best friends leaned in for my response. Was I struggling too?
Someone told us about a man who had left his wife and two young children to live in an apartment and “figure things out.” “You have to watch out for the seven-year itch,” we’ve been told many times.
There is a mystery surrounding marriage that makes it difficult to understand why that man walked out on his wife on their seventh wedding anniversary. And the same curiosity that my friends embraced over dinner is exactly what’s on the mind of millions. Somehow, there is something about marriage that many are anxious to experience, yet feel baffled by.
As I told my friends over dinner, they need not worry. Yes, marriage has changed my life and requires constant compromise. I have engaged in serious debate over big issues. I miss precious time with my family over the holidays to spend time with his. Jericho and I don’t always agree on where the perfect vacation is or what qualifies as a "good vehicle". But really, it’s all worth it. I get to share everything with my husband, and that makes marriage—a decisive commitment before God, the government and everyone else—amazing. And the trying moments seem fleeting as I think of the calm I felt while lying in bed on the morning of our wedding.
God gave us the sacrament of marriage, and He blesses it each day. And like anything else of importance, Jesus taught us to do our part—love one another, pray, be faithful. It is with this sense of commitment and blessing that we can conquer worldly doubt and perhaps even find ourselves slowly waking each morning next to our beloved, alarm clock blaring, fingers securely intertwined under the covers as we hit the snooze button.
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