Best Day of My Life

This is supposed to be the best day of my life. The day I gallop into the sunset atop a white stallion stroking Prince Charming’s luscious locks. The day little girls dream of.

Yet her I am; immaculately manicured fingers clenched round a rusty gate with the relentless grip of an alligator’s chomp. My feet hugging the narrow steps as if one slip will send me tumbling to my demise. My heart pounding like a herd of drunken elephants beating their bongos. My chest swelling with the pressure of an imminent roaring geyser. I’m beginning to shiver and shake. Wobble and wonder. What have I done?

Of course I look gorgeous in my pearly white wedding dress, but how will I look in twenty years? Will I be a good mother? Will I have healthy children? Can I please my husband? Is he even the right man for me? What have I done!?

I’m only nineteen years old. Merely an elemental fetus in the life of our sun. Yet apparently old enough for marriage. Of course I love him, but does love warrant a writ of matrimony? Can lovers not laze in a sea of amative adulation without worrying about drowning under the pressure of wedlock?

I think—pressing the iron gate tightly against my bosom as if it were my stuffed teddy bear—that I’ve sprinted too fast toward the finish line of affiance. I guess I just wanted to please Pappa. He always wanted to have grandchildren to scuffle around with on the farm. I simply wanted to see him smile again. He’s getting old, and with Mamma baking sweet pomegranate pies high above the clouds with Jesus, Pappa needs those grandchildren now more than ever. But is marriage the answer? Can’t I just buy him a dog?

Well, it’s too late now—I’ve already donned the dress. I just hope my central nervous system drags me off these steps sometime soon.

Look at my little sister standing there begging me to come back down to earth. Doesn’t she look so beautiful holding that bouquet? I can’t wait until she gets married!