Married During a Pandemic

We eloped March 14th, just days before the pandemic shut down the city. Followed by a one-day honeymoon at the Mayfair Hotel. We were upgraded to the largest room for half the price. Most of the hotel’s scheduled guests had cancelled. At breakfast, we pretended we didn’t notice the emptiness or the anxious faces we met, here and there. We spent the day at the pool where we ran into old, dear, friends – also married the day before, also trying to pretend everything was normal. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel we were in The Langoliers (if you’re into ’90s mystery, then you know exactly what I mean).

Married on a Saturday, we ran to the courthouse to turn in our marriage certificate on Monday, only to be told the Marriage Bureau was closed. We’d have to mail it in. Sitting on the curb, listening to the court recording on my cell, I tried to remain focused on how blessed we were. Had we waited a few more days, we wouldn’t have been able to secure a marriage application. Without it we wouldn’t have married, and possibly (though I hate to think of it) Alessandro would’ve had to return to Italy, indefinitely.

That’s how we ended up here, on the third week since our nuptials. With all the shock that comes from living on two separate continents, to living in the same home twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. We moved all of my belongings and his luggage to a new home in the space of four days. Between moving, my daughter’s online school, and having to pivot our entire business, I’m not sure we spoke more than two words to each other before collapsing into bed each night. Probably for the best because I’m sure I had nothing inspiring, much less kind, to say.

People keep telling me that this is going to make one hell of a story one day. I believe that’s true because it makes one hell of a story right now. Yet, a story doesn’t have a meaning until we give it one. As Victor Frankl wrote after WWII, “those who have a why to live, can bear with almost any how”.

I’ve given our story several –

1 – You can feel Love or fear, but you cannot feel both at the same time. Choose Love as often as you can.
2 – My worth is not dependent on what I can create or how much money I make. We are divinely worthy every moment of every day, forever and ever.
3 – We were never in competition with one another. Your salvation is indivisible from my own.
4 – Love is the only thing that’s real. It is all encompassing and has no opposite. 

Today, I hope you grant me this birthday wish – that you find the meaning to this chapter of your story. And if you don’t, that you allow yourself to be present with ‘this’ – without judgment of any kind.

As sure as the sun rises, a new day comes.