The Beautiful Aftermath

In the moments after announcing that Paris and I were engaged on social media, we were delighted by so many lovely comments and texts. “So happy for you guys!” “Congrats!” “Love this!”

On the group chat for one of the comedy troupes I belong to, Watermelon, the messages were much the same. “I screamed!” “Congrats!” But my dear comedy pal, Austin, added “2nd time’s the charm” which made me laugh so hard and caused me to immediately show Paris.

It’s no secret that I’ve been engaged before. Details aside, it didn’t work out. I never want to try and hide this fact because I don’t want folks to feel like ending something that doesn’t serve you is something to be ashamed of. It is not. If something does not serve you or make you feel like the best version of yourself, there’s no shame in making choices to move in the direction of happiness and freedom, should that be an option.

I understand that is easier said than done. For the longest time, I was frozen in fear. I felt like I was on an unstoppable trajectory toward something inevitable.

Because the universe provides, I met Austin in the very first improv class I took at the now-shuttered Dallas Comedy House back in 2016. He and his best friend, Adam, were some of the youngest of our classmates, who ranged in age from mid-twenties to upper forties. Initially the pair kept to themselves, but one night, they invited me to a diner nearby to grab a bite before class.

After that, we were all three cast in a troupe together and started a Thursday night writing meetup. During and after rehearsals and at these writing meetups, Austin would listen to me lament about my job and my relationship. I spoke as a miserable person but one who seemed unable (or at the very least, unwilling) to make any changes.

One day at a midday lunch, I sat across from him, all long curls, freckles, and skate shoes. He’s only five years younger than me, but for a while there, I felt ancient. I don’t know that I overtly said it, but I definitely had the sinking feeling of things being “too late” for me. This was it. This misery was my fate, and I was bound to it for eternity.

As he attacked a plate of noodles before him, he looked up at me and said, “Why don’t you just quit? Why don’t you just break up? Blow up your life, dude.”

It was just that simple, but also that hard. I didn’t have it in me to head home that night and change everything. But what he said was simple and brave. Don’t get me wrong. It was more than just that sentence. He followed it up with a lot of encouragement. He reminded me I was strong. That I was a lawyer who couldn’t be bullied. That I deserved to be happy. These were all things I had known before, but by then had let sink deep down where they sat dusty and forgotten. My hopelessness deluded me into thinking any resistance to my predetermined fate was futile.

There was power in that simple phrase he gave me. It started as a little tickle in my brain. Blow up your life. Then it grew. I began to psyche myself up.

Though I was engaged, I had not actually engaged in any real wedding planning. My mom drug me to one bridal show. Rather than throw on a “I’M THE BRIDE!” sash and a white mini-dress, my best friend, LeeAnn, and I arrived with Chick-fil-A cups filled with cider and made jokes at all the booths.

At the fine china booth, they asked which of us was the bride. I pointed to LeeAnn and said, “This is my beloved fiancée. Please give her all the fineries she requires. Do you sell the pattern from the plates on the Titanic?”

Despite lugging home a sack full of brochures, I had no interest in pursuing anything further. No date was set. No colors were chosen. I never once tried on a wedding dress. A planned trip to David’s Bridal sent me into a tailspin as all that white fabric promised to swallow me whole and end me once and for all.

I was miserable. I was scared. And, finally, I blew up my life. Quit my job. Ended my engagement.

In the fallout, I rebuilt. Through a series of fortunate events, and a lot of healing, I ended up here. Engaged. Again.

This time I feel different. Just two weeks after we got engaged, Paris and I chose a venue. We’ve already hired a wedding planner. And just twenty days after being engaged, I accidentally found my dress.

My mom – the seamstress, tailor, and costume designer – was understandably focused on the dress. She’s an expert in the field and knows the jargon. She also loves a bargain. A local dress shop was having a trunk show, which she seemed excited about, though I am still not sure what that means. I was in the store. I saw no trunks! When I hear trunk sale I expect women crawling over one another to pull dresses out of dusty pirates’ chests amongst pearls and doubloons

But I agreed to go along and see what they had.

By then, I had read about a dozen local bridal magazines. In my wedding planner notebook, I made a list of eight dress boutiques, not including the trunk show place or any chains, that I planned to visit over the next couple of weeks.

Accompanying my mom and me on this first exploratory mission was Shannon, my sister and matron of honor, and LeeAnn, my maid of honor and forever wife.

We started at the trunk show place. I slipped in and out of a few numbers, but only found one I kind of liked. I didn’t love it. You know on all those TV shows, the stupid blushing bride stands up going, “This is my dress! I don’t want to take it off!” I was hoping for that level of enthusiasm. I thought the dress was ok, but I had some notes. Other dresses, I hated entirely, so at least this was something.

When I didn’t find “the one” at the trunk sale, we moved along to a major bridal chain up the street. The consultant buzzed around me, insisting that I was sure to find “the one” right away. I slipped on dress after dress in good faith, but each time found myself forced to add them to the discard pile. One had a slit that exposed my whole bathing suit area. Another was so thin, my entire Abraham Lincoln tattoo was visible, surely a treat for all our guests.

Finally, we headed to a boutique in the Design District of Dallas. I had chosen a few dresses from their site and emailed my preferences to them in advance of the appointment. It turns out my online taste is full garbage. While the dresses were breathtaking, I felt like I was wearing costumes. None fit right. They itched. They were too flashy. They weren’t me.

Since my choices were a bust, the consultant, Daniela, asked if she could grab some contenders she thought I would like. The first one was a no-go, too tight with off-the-shoulder sleeves that kept my arms down at my side like a penguin. As my time slot was coming to a close, I began mentally planning the visits to the other eight boutiques on my list in the coming weeks.

There was still one remaining dress on the hanger. I don’t want to describe it here too much because my faithful fiancé reads this lovely letter each week (hi babe!). But when I put it on, I heard bells ring.

Daniela pulled back the curtain of the COVID-reduced waiting room, and all three of my maximum-allowable guests gasped. It was perfect. I even said, “This is my dress! I don’t want to take it off!” just like all those idiots on TV.

With my dress on, I paraded around the empty show room, toting with me a fake bouquet until finally it became obvious it was time for us to buy. We put in the order right then and there. The dress should arrive sometime around the end of September (COVID-pending).

I had left my house that morning with no expectation of buying a dress. I fully expected to get a feel, make a list, and head out again over the next few months. I was apparently the only one with that thought.

 “I knew it,” my sister said. “I knew you would find something today. That’s why I came. I know your personality.” She was right. She always is. 

Before leaving the boutique, my phone buzzed. It was a text from Paris.

“I proposed 20 days ago, and today you’re wedding dress shopping… you want to marry me so bad.”

He’s right. I do want to marry him so bad. I’m lucky he wants to marry me so bad right back and tells me as much every day.

So Austin’s message of congratulations was right. Second time is the charm. When I stepped into each of the bridal salons last week, the chipper women at the front desk would ask who the bride was. Each time I announced without hesitation it was me. When they asked how I met my fiancé, I told them we matched on Bumble. It sounds a lot better than saying, “We met after I blew up my life.”

***

This piece first appeared in Sunday Morning Hot Tea. Subscribe so you don’t miss another piece.

The Maybe Payoff

I am a gambler. I love scratch offs and slot machines and the thrill of “maybe.” It is because I am an optimist. Most rational people look at a slot machine with a giant jackpot flashing in lights and think, Yeah right. They see a scratcher promising the possibility of $10,000 per week for the rest of your life and walk away from the checkout line, scratcher un-purchased.

Not me. That “maybe” draws me in every time. Optimism – sweet, foolish optimism – is in my bones. My daddy was a gambler. He played the lottery religiously. Bought a ticket every week. He relished trips to the casinos in Oklahoma and Louisiana, or the jackpot of them all – Las Vegas. He always played to win, but rarely did. His game was video poker. He was on a perpetual hunt for the elusive Royal Flush.  Game after game, he would throw away winning hands that would have netted a lesser win because he was on a mission for the top prize.

This seems stupid if you look at it pragmatically. Curious for myself, I went to that well of knowledge, Google, and asked, “Should you try for a royal flush in video poker?” It didn’t outright answer, “No, dummy,” but it came close.

According to Casino Player Magazine, you are likely to be dealt three of the five cards needed for a royal flush about one time every 7 to 8 hours of game play. It brings a real rush to get that close, and you think I almost had it! Even with those three cards, your odds of hitting a royal flush are 1 in roughly 380,000. So, yes, technically there is a chance, but it’s so small. Or is it?

In 2068, the Earth has a 1 in 380,000 chance of being struck by an asteroid the size of the Eiffel Tower. According to How Stuff Works, if an asteroid the size of a house struck Earth, it would have the same impact as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. One the size of the Eiffel Tower would then, logically, be slightly worse. So that could happen. Or, you could hit a royal flush in video poker.

Somehow when it’s something bad, 1 in 380,000 sounds a little more likely. Why doesn’t it sound so possible when it’s something good? Why can’t we let ourselves hope and believe a little?

It was my known love of scratch-off lotto tickets or “scratchers” that got me standing on a balcony on the day before Easter this year. My sister, Shannon, and her best friend, Misti, had orchestrated our entire weekend getaway to the Broken Bow Lake area of southeast Oklahoma. It’s a beautiful refuge I’d been to a handful of times before with high school pals on weekend party trips.

Lush with greenery and a wide, blue horizon broken only by the dark blue of the lake, its beauty is stunning and frankly surprises people. You show them photos, and the reaction comes, “That is Oklahoma?” Yeah, it is, and maybe don’t besmirch an entire state if you’ve never been there.

Shannon and Misti rented a cabin for us all listed as “Viewtopia” on AirBNB with a panoramic view of the surrounding greenery and the lake in the distance. The back balcony proved an ideal place for me to write, or for Misti’s husband, Michael, and my brother-in-law, Aaron, to smoke cigars. It also turned out to be a great place to get engaged.

After my nieces had finished their day-early Easter egg hunt out front on Saturday morning, we settled into the living room watching the girls pop eggs open and emptying out the candy inside.

I had been told earlier to dress up because we’d be taking family Easter pictures. Reluctantly, I changed from a flannel and my Curb Your Enthusiasm “Pretty pretty pretty pretty good” shirt into a semi-nice blouse from Target, black with small flowers. I paired it with the only pair of jeans I wear and my walking shoes – navy blue Allbirds with athletic socks.

That morning as Paris shaved, fixed up his hair, and meticulously chose his outfit, I mentioned that I had a “real all-natural mermaid look” going on with my hair. It had air dried the night before, and I didn’t want to fight with dragging comb through it.

“Do you maybe want to comb your hair?” he asked.

“Nahh.”

In the living room before the girls’ Easter egg hunt, Misti mentioned how she’d be putting on makeup and a dress.

“I left my makeup bag in Dallas,” I said. Her eyes bulged.

In my jeans and Target blouse, hair in beachy, tangled waves, and with my unmade-up face, I sat with the kids and Paris in the living room in a sea of plastic eggs.

Without warning, Shannon and Misti rounded us up and herded the entire crew to the back porch.

“We don’t want Easter to be just about the kids,” Shannon said. “So we came up with a little plan.”

“My dentist said her kids are grown, and instead of candy in the eggs, she hides eggs with cash and lottery tickets,” Misti said. “When she told me that, I thought what a fun idea it would be to do a grown-up Easter egg hunt for us.” I do concur that grown-ups like lotto tickets and money, but we like candy, too. Nevertheless.

“The dads can work with the kids to hunt, and Heather and Paris can be on a team.”

Like most things in life, I said ok and got to it. My brother-in-law and younger niece went ahead of us, and the other dad-daughter pair brought up the rear. Paris and I walked the wrap-around balcony as I gathered plastic Easter eggs in my hand.

A couple things: I was not given an Easter basket. This made things difficult as I cradled the eggs in my arm like a ridiculous infomercial actor fumbling in black-and-white being asked by a narrator, “Got too many eggs to handle? Try the Egg-o-Matic!”

Hands full, I was forced to work smarter, not harder. I noticed that the smaller eggs had cash in them while the larger eggs contained the scratchers. I stopped going for the small eggs. After all, I know where to find cash – the ATM, or cash-back at the grocery store, or in a piggybank I keep on top of my dryer. What I wanted was that sweet, sweet scratchin’ paper, which meant I was leaving the small eggs behind.

My smallest niece spotted a shimmering gold egg perched up on one of the cabin’s jutting crossbeams, about six feet in the air.

“Oh, look! A gold one!” she said.

Too busy with my scratchers to help her, I said, “Oh yeah, you should have your dad get that one for you.” My brother-in-law didn’t reach up. He ignored it and me and kept walking forward, shooing his daughter away from the eggs and ushering her around a corner, out of sight.

Behind me, the other dad-daughter duo were picking up eggs and trailing close behind.

“Babe, move!” his wife called to him. He slid backward, kid in hand, away from us. I continued collecting lotto eggs, unbothered.

“You should grab that egg,” Paris said, pointing at the gold egg above our heads.

I noted it was small. “Nah, it’s not one of the ones with the scratchers in it.”

He insisted. “Grab that one.”

I only remember what happened next because of the many videos taken of the moment. At the time, I kind of blacked out.

“Open it,” he said.

“Let me see, hold on,” I said, struggling with the six or seven eggs I was holding. “I wanted scratchers,” I continued, placing the eggs down on the wooden bench of the porch. They fell to the floor. “Oh no, my scratchers!” I yelled in a much more country tone than usual.

As soon as I cracked the golden egg, I screamed, jumping from one foot to the other as if I’d been called to come on down on The Price is Right.

“The greatest egg of all,” I said after screaming. “Oh my God. I’m going to faint off the side. I’m going to faint off the thing.”

With the utmost sincerity through my subsiding screams, Paris told me he’d never been happier since we met and that he wanted to keep doing this forever.

“This” apparently is living with my unbridled enthusiasm. My response was, “Oh my God. I had no idea. I thought it was going to be a scratch-off lottery ticket. It’s the best, though, it’s so much better. I love you so much.” It all poured out then I wrapped him in a hug and a kiss.

It’s important in life to find someone who balances you out. While I tried sealing the deal immediately, Paris reminded me that I hadn’t been asked anything yet.

“I know, but I love you.” I said, hugging him. I let go. “Ok, now you can ask me.”

He then dropped to one knee, which prompted another round of screaming and Price is Right jumps. When he asked, “Heather, will you marry me?” I screamed once again like I’d won the Showcase Showdown. Getting to marry him feels pretty much like I did.

For about a dozen years starting in my early 20s, I had it in my head I wasn’t a catch. I thought people “put up” with me or “dealt with” me. I believed whatever boyfriends I could get were the best I could do. That I was lucky to have anybody. I believed that as a beggar, I was in no place to be a chooser. I wasn’t shooting for the royal flush, but instead was clinging to every hand, feeling grateful for each pair of twos I’d been dealt.

When I lost my dad in September 2017, something started to shift inside me. See, he was the one who believed I could do no wrong. I have a card he wrote me I keep as the wallpaper on my phone. It says, “Every time I hear of something you said or did, I always say, ‘That’s my daughter.’ I’m so proud of you. I love you very much. – Dad.”

Even if I dated fuckabouts and pairs-of-twos, I at least had that card up my sleeve. I knew, in his eyes, I was the best thing that ever hit this planet. But I didn’t believe it for myself. Not until he was gone.

They say when people die, energy can’t be created or destroyed. I know his energy – that part that was always proud of things I said and did, and that unceasing hope and optimism that the next hand could be a royal flush – became a part of me when he died.

The shift that started when he died grew over the years into an avalanche. By the time I was ready to meet Paris, I had stopped hanging on to things that no longer served me in a belief that the best that I could do was just OK. I decided not to settle and not to believe people must “put up” with me. I had decided to be proud of who I am and what I offer and believe in the value of my time. I also decided to date only hot guys.

I had settled for dating just-OK guys for a long time. (If you’re reading this, fellas, first of all – why you here? Second of all, you know I’m not wrong.) When you do the math on it, shooting for mediocrity really doesn’t make sense. We’re each only endowed with our one “wild and precious life.” Why waste it with anyone who doesn’t make your heart flutter or think you shit rainbows and vomit up sunshine?

Enter Paris. Spring of 2019, I had previously deleted all the dating apps on my phone, done with the parade of just-OK I had endured. Then in March, as I co-officiated my friend Lindsay’s wedding, I saw the pure and true love that happened between the bride and her new husband, Jay. The man sobbed when he saw her in her dress. He sobbed when she walked down the aisle. They beamed at each other in a love that filled up the whole church. The whole city, actually. It was fricken adorable, ok? And I thought, if a pair like that, so perfectly matched, could meet on Bumble… well, maybe things weren’t all lost for me.

So I re-downloaded the app and within weeks matched with Paris. Initially, I was convinced that I was being catfished. First of all, he’s hot. Second of all, his name is Paris. Clearly fake. Third, he mentioned coffee and tacos and movies in his profile. All things that sound designed to hook me.

Even all this time later, all the hours we’ve spent together, all the things we have gone through – some days I don’t believe he’s real. I mean, yes, I have a ring on my hand and he put it there. But who’s to say that’s not all part of the con? It’s not a con, of course. The fact is, when you win big, it feels unbelievable.

In the end, I got my royal flush, my one-in-three-hundred-thousand- asteroid-striking-the-earth. Sometimes the house wins, sure, but every once in a while, someone’s gotta be the one who hits the big win. I’m glad it was me this time. I’m glad I held out hope in the face of catastrophic odds. I can’t help it. I’m optimistic. What can I say? It’s in my genes.

***

This piece first appeared in Sunday Morning Hot Tea. Subscribe so you don’t miss another piece.