#45: Taking the PLUNGE: Skydiving & Marriage

This past Sunday at my co-ed skydiving bachelorette party, I realized that there is a reason why "taking the plunge," whether we're talkin' skydiving or marriage, can cause a lot of unnecessary panic and cold feet.

Sometimes the anticipation of that which is risky is scarier and more debilitating than engaging in the act itself. This is not to say that the jump or a marriage are a piece of cake - clearly, I'm aware that both can suck you dry of everything you've got, as evident in my post-jump, dizzied, barf face in this photo:

Note: I didn't actually barf but for nearly an hour after the jump I could barely stand. SO worth it!

But when the fear is in your MIND as opposed to in your heart, it's wise to simply take a leap of faith. (NOTE: Please DO return to the kinks in your mind, however. With your fiance. With friends. With a therapist. With a spiritual guru of your choice. Because those kinks probably come from a place of irrational fear and baggage, and trust me, they don't just dissolve over time on their own.)

Watch my skydiving slideshow all the way through to the end to read more of my thoughts on cold feet both in the sky and at the altar. The video below cuts off the text - ARGH! - so you might want to click on this link instead. (Live video of jump coming soon!)

#38: Cold Feet (part 3): The end of an epic trilogy?

My wedding is in 4 weeks. I should be feeling excited. I should be tying all of the details together. I should be giddy. Or at least stressing out over logistical issues. But no. I feel none of those things. It's just me and my cold feet. Again.

Last week I had been reading through my bloggy friends' writing and noticed how in love they all seemed to be. They were very "I'm marrying my best friend" and all. Which is perfectly perfect. But I don't consider Brian my best friend, although he sometimes feels like the other half of my brain. And we did not have a magical, easy first year of dating. There was no steamy romance. There was no puppy love or endearing nervousness. At the time it was just us and our baggage - frustrated, confused, and ambivalent. (Well, that was me, anyway.)

So when one blogger commented on A Practical Wedding  last week about how, in times of marital trouble, you should recall the fond memories of the early part of your love, I panicked. Because for me, there were very few fond memories. And when another blogger commented that you can't rekindle something that was never there in the first place, I nearly crapped my pants. Because what if the love that Brian and I have was never strong to begin with, even after these 5 years of being together? And oh my gosh, we're getting married in 4 weeks -- ahhh!!! (Cue panic attack.)

And then I had a few saving thoughts:

• Our love story is not like anyone else's. It's doesn't follow the typical Hollywood storyline arc of exciting beginning, steady rise, major challenge, romantic apology, and happily ever after. That's just not us. BUT. Maybe there's not just one way to tell a good story.

• Maybe contentment makes me nervous. I'm afraid to be happy and trusting and optimistic because I was all of those things in my last relationship, and quite frankly, it put me through hell. That relationship was like a thriving village that was burned to ashes. So I guess it's not happiness that makes me nervous - it's the end of happiness that scares me. And after starting a blog about being brave, there's no way I'll let myself jump ship out of fear. Because if I choose retreat instead of resilience, all my pain will have been in vain. Insane. And lame. (See -- I'm so emotional I've started a spontaneous bout of freestyle rap.)

• I was reminded by my fiance that whenever I have a great idea or sincere passion, my anxiety and fear talk me out of it. So I have to wonder - how much of my doubt is just me, and how much of it is appropriate for my relationship with Brian? My Mom says I was born a nervous baby. And maybe I still am.  

• The onset of cold feet is always when I am alone with my brain, my fear, my imagination, and my unanswerable questions. When I am with Brian I never feel as if something is missing, nor do I experience the sinking feeling that I'm making a huge mistake. It's time alone with my paranoia (too much time to think, says this brilliant blogger) that is the likely culprit here. 

• Screw having my husband be my one and only best friend! You know what? I have best friends. But now I want and need a co-pilot. I want someone to share my journey with. I need a partner who can be trusted and relied on- someone who keeps his word. It's got to be someone who I like a whole bunch; someone who "gets me" and makes me laugh. I need someone who will offer to fly the plane when I need to get up for a pee break. Not a best friend, not a Prince Charming. A co-pilot. Yeah, I think like that.  

So. I'm pretty happy with the bullet points above. And maybe this post on cold feet is the end to an epic trilogy. OR maybe I'll pull a Star Wars and simply come back several years from now with 3 more episodes. Who knows? But all I can say is that wedding is still on. And I'm growing my balls ever so carefully and slowly, all in the name of this crazy little thing called Love. Because as I learned from one blogger a few weeks back, if we walk in the direction of our fears who knows what kind of incredible life we could live.

#18: Cold Feet (part 2): The Tale of Two Volcanoes

Ain't it scary to know that two people can start off with love and good intentions, only to end up being the thorn in each other's side?  It's so scary, in fact, that it kept me up for hours one night. What am I signing myself up for? I thought to myself. Will our love end up in divorce like 50% of America? (Or whatever the statistic is.)

For non-confrontational people like myself, marital strife often comes in the form of resentful thoughts and hurt feelings that live underground like molten lava in the earth. Man and wife are two volcanoes sitting next to each other, rumbling, waiting, and hating. The familiar and "comfortable" method of communication is explosive eruption or brooding silence.

The scariest part is that most troubled couples weren't always like this. In the beginning they were just a young 20-something couple that was in love. Some may even have come from big families and had parents with long and happy marriages. So if "The Tale of Two Volcanoes" can happen in their love story, it can happen to anyone's.

Lucky for me I'm on a mission to grow balls. They're not very big but they're developing - mostly through writing, reflecting, and lots of talking with a fiance whose bold ballsy-ness impresses the heck out of me. Another advantage that Brian and I have is our openness to individual and couples therapy if our relationship ever needed it. (Yup, we've talked about this.)

For me, so much of being engaged is just about being brave. It's about being fully aware of the realities of marriage and signing up anyway, knowing that when the time comes to fight for my relationship I've got to have the guts to be honest, the guts to hear my husband be honest with me, and the guts to do the work that needs to be done.

#17: Cold Feet (part 1): The grass is always greener in another cute boy's yard.

When you're in love and engaged you're not supposed to be checking out other guys and crushing on 'em like an 11-year-old, hormonal, acne-covered girl with mosquito bites for boobs. But I'm a bona fide boy crazy chick 4 life, and that may never change. I love first dates. I love blind dates. I love all dates. So being married, like, forever and ever, is a little scary for me. I'm nervous, to be quite honest. I wonder if I'll be any good at being a wife, and (to a lesser extent, actually), if Brian will be any good at being a husband.

I hate knowing that we will inevitably be attracted to other people. And I'm not just talking physically - I mean emotionally and even spiritually. Because the truth is, there are multiple people in this world with whom we could have a potentially wonderful romantic partnership. There are people who can make us laugh harder than our fiances can. And there are people who are not even capable of making us as annoyed as our fiances do at times.

So what's a girl to do when she's bent on all of these heavy thoughts? She talks to her fiance about it. And when I talked to mine, he did his usual little magic trick where he talks me down from the ledge.

Brian assured me that what I'm feeling is normal, and what I'm thinking is true. But he also said that if I keep holding back from fully committing because the grass is always greener in another cute boy's yard, I'm going to miss out on all of the wonderful things that are unique to a long-term relationship.

I'm coming to grips with the fact that having cold feet doesn't make me a bad person. It doesn't mean I don't love Brian. It doesn't mean I'm not ready to be married. And it doesn't mean that I'm more likely to be a bad wife. I'm just proceeding with caution, moving forward, and plowing through. And that's the best and bravest thing I can do for now.

The torturous and confusing struggle to keep myself realistic (vs. pessimistic) about fidelity is baggage that I carry from my past relationships. It takes all my strength to muster up enough bravery and energy to put a lid on my obsessive anticipation of tragedy. This is the price I pay for the boundless, kick-ass love that I have with Brian. And when I think of my worries in those terms, my cold feet become room temp.