In case of THE BODY SNATCHERS

I’m a different person. 

I’m not the person I was last year.  I’m not even the person I was last week.  I’m new. 

The girl who wanted so much to date Andrew (Andrew!), the girl so capricious and impulsive she had to enforce a Prohibition, the girl that went angry and embittered to a wedding on October 11^th?  Who WAS that?!?

I admit, I do bear a resemblance to her.  But our similarities are fleeting and shallow; they’re expressions we simply wear the same way.  It’s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, except she’s the emotionless pod person and I am Becky.  I woke up and I’m Becky!  Alive and scared and in love!  I’ve been reverse body snatched!

(i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimatably earth)

And here in this new world there’s Michael. 

And yes!  I know everything of all the reasons there “shouldn’t” be Michael!  I know of the complications – how neither one of us has a certain future or any money, how difficult long distance is, etc.  I know, too well, the width and depth of the Pacific.  And maybe down the road, in a month or two months from now, I will rue those complications and groan with how frustrating and difficult they make it all.

But today?  I just can’t.

Today I don’t care.  Today I couldn’t care less.  Today those things make me laugh, in a vague and amused way.

Today I want to run the road, banging on car hoods and screaming, “You’re next!”

(now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

In case of NED KELLY

Argue all you like, but I maintain that there is nothing not to like about weddings.  Free food, awkward relatives, and love love love.  Even having to wear high heels can’t ruin a day like that.

PLUS.

There are Groomsmen. 

Where else would a girl like me ever get the chance to dance with a charming, tuxedo-clad Australian?  Go ahead and picture it.  The last dance of the night.  A slow dance.  And there I sit, single, wistful, a glass of gold sparkling cider in my hand.  Then a Groomsman begins to walk toward me through the glow of the twinkle lights and I’m in his arms almost before the invitation is even out of his mouth.  It was magical.

And did he turn out to be a Bootlegger (or, in his case, a Bushranger)?

No.

He turned out to be a wonderfully sincere gentleman.  And you don’t meet many of them these days. 

But if you’re looking, I recommend going to weddings.

My point is this.  There is no better place to celebrate life than a wedding.  There’s no better place to rejoice in a God who restores, who heals, who brings people together.  If you go to a wedding bitter, determined to hurt or feel resentment, you’ll only be met with love.  A wedding means that there’s hope in this world.  There’s hope.  A wedding is a lighthouse on an angry sea, a hand to hold, a shooting star.

So raise your glasses to Darren and Maureen.  This (!) has been a long time coming.  See, he’s a Star Wars Geek and she’s a Chronicles of Narnia Fanatic and they’ve now promised to take care of each other in sickness and in health and in all the nerdiness that will surely follow them for the rest of their lives.  I mean, they are just bound to have dozens of book-reading, cloak-wearing, light-saber-wielding Jedi children.  Seriously. 

AND.

Don’t be afraid to stand alone out there.  Because people are still getting married in this world. Because you never know when you’ll get asked to dance.

Weddings should make us all a little braver.

In case of PROHIBITION

I admit it.  I am a virgin.

I either credit or blame this (depending on the day) on my upbringing.  Thanks to so many years of Sunday School and, later, Youth Group, I fully believed that sex before marriage was WRONG.  And this didn’t cramp my style at all.  I was a “late bloomer.”  Until very recently, sex never even sounded like that great of an idea.  Yes, I am a very successful product of Christian Subcultural Brainwashing. 

But then I met Bobby.  And I discovered kissing.  And the bastion of my sexual prudery began to crumble.

And why not?  We were in love.  Making out with someone you love is GREAT.  We always had so much fun finding new and interesting places to suck face.  We made out in closets, in bathrooms, in cars, on staircases, on rides at Disneyland, on cliff tops, on beaches, in the ocean, in my parents’ house, in his parents’ house, in mission bell towers, in the woods, in the parking lot, in every dark corner of every building we could think of, and a in million other places I’m sure I’m forgetting. 

And when Bobby and I broke up, I was angry and hurt and vulnerable and there was no way I was going to wait too long to see what it was like to kiss someone else. 

Now, that was two years ago.

And I haven’t been all as promiscuous as I could have been.  But I can still count my boyfriends on one hand, and, at this point, I’ve got to take off my shoes to count the number of mouths I’ve stuck my tongue into.  Thank God for toes.

But I miss being in love.

I miss getting to kiss the SAME person every day.  I miss the ease of a relationship, of making out with someone who KNOWS you, who you are, and how to treat you.  I miss getting turned on by my emotions, not just my body.

As Beth says, maybe making out for the sake of making out isn’t WRONG.  Maybe it’s just not as good as it could be.  And even if you’re kissing someone you care about, someone you like, someone you really respect and admire and maybe even love in some way, if you’re not IN love, it’s still not as good as it could be.  It’s not ideal.  Not the way that it should be. 

And why do I want to settle for that?  Loneliness?  Curiosity?  Sexual frustration?  Even to express comfort or affection, is that a good enough reason?  I want to be a part of something as good as it could be!

So this (!) is my official decision.  The next guy that gets to kiss me has to already be dating me.  The next guy is going to be THE guy, for a while.  This virgin is hereby laying off the sex.  I’m getting on the wagon.  I’m quitting, cold turkey. 

Bootleggers be damned.