We eloped. We didn't tell anybody, we just did it. I had a couple good friends witness our vows, and it was a beautiful thing. We did it at a quiet bar facing away from everything. It was raining when we went in, and when we came out it actually was perfectly sunny and not cliche at all.
Here's what I just posted to facebook after the birthday like roll-out of congrats:
Thank you everyone for the goodwill! We are an official Power Couple now.
"What does this mean?" you may be asking yourselves by silently wondering through facebook at me, "What does this mean to you, Mac?"
To which I reply, "Thanks for asking and it's perfectly normal, but please know it's not just my opinion that matters. My wife is not on Facebook so with this response I must represent both our feelings. Imperfectly, of course, because she is, as am I, an individual still and we have not connected our brains."
I beckon you. "Come, let us walk down this winding deciduous forest path for a moment." The mid-morning light plays on our faces like spirits of love.
I say, "It's peaceful here, isn't it? Oh look, a caribou!" She stands sun struck in mammalian majesty higher up beyond the bush, her calf peaking out from behind, and it makes us laugh.
But before long, I see you again working in thought.
To which I say, "Hmm... to be an official Power Couple... let's see. Well I suppose we're discovering what that means ourselves! But right now. Right now to us it means simply that we will power through hardship together. In an official capacity of course. We've had a lot of practice. Two and half years! And one year living together. It's true. And yeah, ideally, we must be together until death does us part.
I think this whole exercise is an admittance to that -- that this is and always was our ideal."
We find a good resting place with a view, overlooking valleys and mountains and lakes and space.
"Marriage turned out to be so easy. The thing occurred unlike anything we expected... you know, I think we spent far more time deliberating whether we actually wanted to call ourselves Boyfriend and Girlfriend back when at first. Maybe we knew that was it. It took many weeks of negotiation. But we eventually decided we would be Boyfriend and Girlfriend. We were in our winter jackets at night, on the steps to 301, away from everyone else. We admitted our first real 'I love you's. We solemnly promised that we would say 'I love you' only once a week because we both believed that the phrase was way overused to the point of like, what did it mean anyways, you know? So only once a week.
But then, we couldn't stop saying it and now we find ourselves here in this wonderful forest."
You may be shrugging at this.
To which I shrug too, and smile.
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Guess I'm pretty excited about all of this, so I had to post. It's crazy, I always thought marriage was so lame when I was younger and now I'm a married man. Totally flipped on that one.
What do you guys think about marriage? Is it a silly cultural prescription? Want a traditional reception and ceremony? Trying not to think about it? Is it a super big deal? Is it boring? Destined for divorce? Is it useful?