INVISIBLE STRING

I bet you know what I’m going to write about today. 

Well, you might not, I suppose.

Anyway, now that’s it’s public knowledge I can tell you about what it feels like to be engaged, affianced, betrothed… what the thought of marriage is like, and how it all happened for Sammy and me.

Sometimes life’s big events aren’t the same as we expected or predicted, are they? They can be so much richer and deeper and more personal. I’ve been surprised, I think, about how deep and how personal it is, navigating through this season. It is not what I imagined.

For the first time, there are two of us. That’s weird for a single person to get used to. I’m writing, not from my own experience, but from ours - I’m intertwined, and more and more so, with another beautiful person. Every where I go, and everything I write, now has an attachment to Sammy. It’s like Taylor Swift says - invisible string. She’ll read this (Sammy I mean, not Taylor Swift), not as a friend perusing my adventures with a raised eyebrow, but actually being with me on them, knowing me inside out, being on the other end of the string. That feels like a huge shift. Plus, she’ll absolutely pull me up on the details if I misremember something.

We talked about getting married ages ago. Then we looked at rings. Then, on a trembly, rainy lunchtime, I bought a diamond in setting of platinum. I went to see her dad in the middle of the Belgian Grand-Prix and found him delighted. He asked me if I was happy, and I loved that question and its answer. Then, last weekend, I chose a careful moment of sunset and summer, I got down on one muddy knee and asked the question. She said yes, and now here we are, hurtling towards a wedding day in the Spring.

So. I said I would explain what the thought of marriage is like. I’ve figured it out. It’s like bungee-jumping with your best friend. There you are, standing on the edge, strapping yourself in to the harness. What you’re about to do looks a little bit mad, and you don’t know for sure whether you’ll make it. Though you both sort of know that you will.

But you’re together. And however scary it seems, you also know that it’ll be exhilarating being those daredevils, like the greatest adventurers ever… and you’ll be scared and excited and thankful and over the edge together, connected by, and to, that invisible string, knowing that God is in the midst of it, operating the physics, holding the other end of the bungee rope, laughing with you, as you whoop and holler through the air, “This is amazing! Let’s do this forever!”

And that I think, is absolutely a thing to look forward to. In fact, maybe it always has been.