the long walk.

This morning, I looked down the aisle. We met with the church's wedding directors, who would tell us where to go and how to walk and make sure that we tell any non-punctual types to show up a half hour early, just to be sure. They asked me questions that I did not know the answers to, and I deferred to their judgment about candles and/or candelabras. They talked logistics to my mother-in-law-to-be, while I imagined taking a long, slow walk in front of everyone I love, on my daddy's arm. All those people would all be standing, which I find sort of embarrassing. It's only me, guys.

It's a big, beautiful church and a long walk.

A couple of weeks ago, Josh and I watched Sleepwalk with Me, which is wonderful and hilarious. But the dude in it is getting married for the wrong reasons, and so we watch his fiancee pick out invitations and flowers and want to scream at her to stop. The movie is not against marriage in general, just this particular marriage, which is a terrible idea. The audience and the man writing about his own past know that this wedding is a terrible idea. We know because we watched a wrenching scene where he convinced his girlfriend to get engaged, rather than break up. It was a montage of an all-night fight. I have had that fight, sitting in the floor with the person you love most in the world and crying until your eyes are puffy and your head hurts. I cannot imagine concluding at the end of such a fight that marriage is the solution.

But they do, and after that comes a montage of wedding stuff. The same kind of wedding stuff that has been flitting around my head for months, the same kind of wedding stuff that nice church ladies asked me about this morning.

In the end (spoiler alert), they do not get married, because they agree that it is a terrible idea. Josh and I watched it together and laughed a lot. It left me with a little nag in my head, a voice wondering whether this dude and his bad engagement were making my dude think twice before taking the long walk. A couple of times, I almost said something. Just as a joke, of course, except it could turn out to be not a joke.

And then a few days later, he said something which made it clear to me that he'd had the same little nag in his head. Not worrying about his decision to take the long walk with me, but worrying whether I was worried. So neither of us were worried anymore.

The walk is not so long. It just depends on who is waiting at the end.