1620 Days and Counting

A few months ago, I created an account on The Knot because I’d just started working for a wedding photographer who needed some help with her marketing. In the middle of procrastinating on another project this week, I decided to check the site to see if the new bio I’d written for her listing had been posted yet. I logged into my account and up popped a green tab in the lower left corner that said:

Hi Darrah Jane
1620 days since your wedding!

Holy crap. It’s been one thousand, six hundred and twenty days (and counting) since the MR. and I said I Do, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, through laughter and tears. As I pondered the inconceivable (said just like this) realization that I’d been a MRS. for that long, I nearly spit out my green tea when it hit me that it’s been almost 8 years (or 2,920 days if you want to keep it apples to apples) since the MR. and I met at a barbecue.

I’d been living in San Francisco for 5 years at the time and had been single for just about all of it. I’d gone on a few dates here and there, but the longest “relationship”, which is really a stretch to even call it that, was three months. For me, this was revolutionary. I’d had a boyfriend consistently since I was 17. Actually, it was three boyfriends over the course of 10 years, with a few months…or weeks…of being Little Miss Single thrown in between each one.

My favorite between-boyfriends crush was on a bass player in a cover band in St. Louis called Paint the Earth. His name was Ben. I don’t think I ever knew his last name. And he didn’t really feel the same about me. But it didn’t matter. He had long hair. And he played guitar. In a band. Okay, a cover band. But still. A band. Three friends and I would follow those guys to every gig, every weekend. We’d dance right up front and give the stink-eye to every other girl groupie. Yea, there’s a good chance it looked a little psycho.

About this time was when I got my first tattoo...on my rear. Clearly, I was starting to pound out a tiny crack in my sorority-girl, goody-two-shoes, rules-following shell. More than anything, I wanted to ditch the Sandy-image from the beginning of Grease and be the Sandy at the end of the movie. But it wasn't going to happen overnight.

Case in point: When I got the tattoo, I wore my bathing suit bottoms to be sure that it’d be in a spot where no one could see it. Because even though I wanted to stand tall and be my own person, too much of me was still concerned with what other people would think. Basically, I had the will, but no balls.

Walking into the tattoo parlor, I felt like I'd come home and was totally out of place all at the same time. As though it was scripted, there were three burly gents sitting there, all with a lot of tattoos and probably a Harley a-piece parked in the back. The guy who did my tattoo literally looked like one of the guys from ZZ Top. Beard and all. Watching him ink dainty flowers on my arse was a picture-perfect juxtaposition. At work the next day, I went to the bathroom every half-hour just to look at my new addition. Hiding in that stall, I experienced my first waves of rebel freedom.

Fast forward to 1997. I’d moved to San Francisco (sans boyfriend) and, feeling the need for a growth spurt, I got my first piercing. On my belly button. Then I dyed my forever-blonde locks a dark chocolate brown, much to my mother’s dismay. Then I got my second tattoo. Then another piercing. I was on a roll. Not sure I knew exactly where I was going, but I believed that if I changed the way I looked, people's perception of me would change, too. They'd stop seeing the tall blonde Barbie and start seeing the girl I really wanted to be: a free-spirited, creative, alternative chick. Took me awhile to realize that I was actually the person I needed to convince the most.

And then I got invited to that barbecue.

I didn’t know a soul besides my friend who invited me, and so, feeling a little awkward and sorta shy, I focused on getting myself a burger. But by the time I got to the fixins’ table, there were no more hamburger buns. In a moment of what I still think of as sheer creative genius, I used two flattened-out hot dog buns instead.

Looking around, I saw my friend sitting at a table across the lawn. There was an open seat across from her so I high-tailed it over before someone else grabbed it. I didn’t really register who else was at the table as I sat down; I was concentrating too hard on keeping the ketchup on my plate and off my shirt. Picking up my brilliant burger/hot dog bun concoction, I was poised to take my first bite when I heard a male voice next to me say: “Nice buns.”

Now I wish I knew what I said in response, and I really hope it was something damn witty, but what I really loved (and still do) about that moment was that the MR.’s humor was the first thing I knew about him. And he’s kept me laughing ever since. Even through the tears.

Speaking of Balls

Anne Taintor is my hero and since my last post was about all the balls in my life, I just had to share this magnet. If you want to laugh your ass off, check out her collection at annetaintor.com. I can only hope to someday be as clever as she is.

Help Me Obi Wan Kenobi, You're My Only Hope

I’ve got a lot of balls in my life right now – figuratively and literally. I’m juggling my freelance work, the adoption process and my own writing. Balls. I’m trying to learn how to play tennis. Balls. I’m figuring out how to make things grow in the garden. Root balls. I’m cleaning up after my cat. Hairballs. And then there are the white hairs that the MR. has discovered on…yes…his balls. Upon learning this last little fun factoid, I think my exact words to the MR. were: “I got enough balls to worry about right now. I don’t have time to worry about yours.”

Worrying is a big theme with me. Not sure if I was a worrier as a little kid, but somewhere along the way, the fear switch turned on and got stronger with each passing year.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve worried about people liking me, about following the rules, about being really bad at sports (kickball, softball, basketball, dodgeball. damn balls.), about people dying, about whether I left the curling iron on, about getting cancer, about letting a friend down, about whether people like my writing, about being a good person, about getting complacent, about gaining weight, about the new wrinkles on my forehead, about watching too much TV, about spending too much time thinking about sad things, about being a failure, about getting pregnant, about…everything.

It’s an exhausting list to write—let alone live—and I imagine it’s overwhelming to read. But fear and worry are powerful things. They’re like Darth Vader and the Emperor from Star Wars, plotting in their evil chamber about how to bring others to the dark side. Defeating them takes a lot of courage—not to mention a killer pair of Princess Leia hairbuns.

For the last year, I’ve been talking about my fears in therapy because I believed that if I talked about them, they would shrivel up and die. But something clicked at my tennis lesson a few weeks ago when my coach said, “You have to hit the ball with COURAGE, Darrah.” I realized that I was saying all the right things in therapy, but wasn’t actually walking through the fire. At some point, talk is cheap. If I really wanted to stop living my life frozen by fear, I was going to have to take a different approach.

So, I hung a photo of Princess Leia over my desk and called Obi Wan (a.k.a my tennis coach) to increase my lessons to twice a week. It may take me a lot of court time to find my courage, but I’m going to grab my fear by the tennis balls. And then I’ll try applying it to the rest of my life. And my writing. May the force be with me.

Something More

There's gotta be something more
Gotta be more than this
I need a little less hard time
I need a little more bliss
I'm gonna take my chances
Taking a chance I might
Find what I'm looking for
There's gotta be something more

Thanks for the kick in the ass, Sugarland. Get the song on iTunes.