Let The Countdown Begin
Tonight was an amazing night, as it truly started the countdown to what will inevitably be an incredible month that Bryan and I will remember forever. We have five major milestones to celebrate this month:
Milestone #1: Christie's 30th Birthday
Milestone #2: Christie's Bachelorette party
Milestone #3: Bryan's FINAL day of radiation
Milestone #4: Our wedding day
Milestone #5: Our honeymoon
This month is simply going to kick ass; we can seriously feel it. For starters, my parents, my brother and Bryan took me to Orso, one of our favorite Italian restaurants in L.A, for an early 30th birthday dinner. It's simply amazing; the food is so fresh, so delicious and you eat by candlelight on a gorgeous, private patio. The waiters leave you alone so you can just sit, chat for hours and truly enjoy your time together. It's always the best to be surrounded by the people you love the most (and vice versa), laughing and having a good time.
Tomorrow night, Bryan has planned a special night for just the two of us (since I'll be in Vegas for my actual birthday). I have no idea what we're doing, and trust me, I've tried to get him to spill the goods (to no avail). He asked me a long time ago what I wanted to do for my birthday, and I told him I just wanted to sit at home, put on some good music, order-in pizza and open a good bottle of wine. Those are some of our favorite nights. No TV, no phones, no distractions. Just us, talking and laughing. And once we're done chatting, falling asleep on the couch together, my head nestled in the crook of his shoulder. These are the perfect nights because we can be silly, stupid, or serious; it doesn't matter.
Nights like those remind me of our second date, when Bryan was testing me to determine whether or not I was "high maintenance." You see, he had planned our first date to the nines. He was scared that since I am from L.A., that must mean I have been everywhere and done everything the city has to offer. Not true. So he planned a three-parter date, complete with wine-tasting, dinner and a comedy show. The entire date lasted well over 12 hours, and it was easily the best first date I've ever been on. Well, for our second date he wanted to make sure I was down for something low key, something that didn't require hours of pre-planning (smart man). So when I came over to his apartment after work, he had Titos Tacos, cold beer and USC football at the ready. Little did he know that's my idea of perfection (second only to wine and NY pizza). Truly, it was the perfect date. We had more fun on the second date than we did on the first, which I thought was impossible. It was a wonderful sign of things to come. If you fast-forward almost 2 1/2 years, and I know this sounds corny, the fact is that we're best friends and have the most fun being together, doing nothing. Just chilling, watching Deadliest Catch, the Food Network or listening to the millions of songs on Bryan's iPod. He's got a knack for matching the perfect song to the perfect occasion, whether it's for cooking, relaxing, impromptu dancing, or even napping. I often say he plays the soundtrack to my life, because he just knows what music fits the mood (kind of like his knack for ingenius drops). And speaking of napping, Bryan is napping as I type this; sprawled out on the couch with his legs over my lap. We had a long day and he's pooped. So he's napping before I wake him to take his chemo pills. For the record, his legs make an excellent foundation for typing.
But I digress. Friday is my actual birthday. I'll be 30 years young. I've always been a bit of an old soul, so to be honest I feel like I've been 30 (or older) for quite a while. Especially when you consider what we've been through lately. The fact is that it will just be another day, marking another year of life. But I feel so lucky to be where I'm at. With the best family (and soon-to-be in-laws), best friends and best soon-to-be husband in the history of the world. Nevermind that we have a little brain tumor to deal with. Nevermind that there's radiation and chemo to finish. Nevermind that there are MRIs to have in a few months. Right NOW, at this exact moment, I am the luckiest girl in the world. And, even with brain tumor in tow, Bryan feels like the luckiest guy in the world. We've got everything we could ever want, even though we live a pretty simple life. It's about sharing love, creating fantastic memories, and just enjoying each and every moment. We've realized that we're pretty unique in our perspective, because a lot of people have a tremendously hard time living in the moment. But when you can stop the worries about yesterday (because guess what, you can't change what's already happened) and tomorrow (because you can't control how tomorrow's going to go), it's really freeing. I don't even know if that is a word, but it's the perfect one for how we are right now: FREE.
We're going to live in the moment, if not down to the second, this entire month. My bachelorette party will be spent with some of my best girlfriends in Vegas, lounging poolside, drinking champagne and enjoying dinners and each other's company. There may even be a bar or club or two, who knows. But it's the conversations and laughs that we'll have during those "between" moments, whether relaxing in a cabana, getting ready for dinner or even right before going to bed that will be some of the most memorable. It's when everyone has their guard down, can be real and is just enjoying time together. Not to mention we all need a friggin' break, whether it's from the stress of work, lay-offs, relationship issues or even brain tumors. We've all got our thing.
Birthday and bachelorette party aside, three weeks from tomorrow starts Bryan's and my weddng weekend. The Thursday before our wedding we're having a wine-tasting day with some of our best friends. We're taking a private van from winery to winery, stopping for lunch at (in my opinion) the world's best burger stand. That will be another day creating awesome (and potentially drunk) memories and enjoying each other's company. Friday is our rehearsal dinner, hosted by Bryan's parents at one of our families' favorite wineries. They have shut the winery down for us and we're getting a private tour, tasting and are having an al fresco dinner on the wrap-around porch of the winery, overlooking the vineyards. We'll all share stories about Bryan's and my relationship (some embarrassing for sure) and the wishes that we have for our future together. I can already tell from the care that Bryan's parents have put into planning the night that it's going to be an incredibly emotional and wonderful evening.
And then...it's finally time for our wedding. A day we've planned since last August. We have had simply the best time planning our wedding. I'd say we had the hardest time finding the perfect venue, but it was smooth sailing after that. There was no stress about guest lists, about seating arrangements, about vendors, etc. It's been really fun. I know a lot of "brides" (I really hate that word, by the way) go crazy while wedding planning, but I truly believe that's because they're focusing on the wrong thing: the party rather than the marriage. At the end of the day, the wedding will be planned, the last glass of champagne will be drunk, and the bride will wake up no longer a bride, but a wife. She will have no more colors to choose, no more cakes to taste, no more flower arrangements to approve. But for the "brides" with their heads on straight, they will realize that the morning after their wedding should be happiest moment of all, as she gets to start the rest of her life with the man she chose as her husband. Sadly, a lot of women forget about that part, instead throwing fits about seating arrangements, hair-do's and nail polish colors. Then they wake up the next morning and wonder, "what do I do now?"
Luckily, that's not me and that's certainly not Bryan. We've planned a beautiful wedding, but that's as far as it goes. By far, we are most happy that we're going to share our wedding day with our closest friend and family. It's going to be Napa Valley, one of our favorite spots in the world, with our reception located in an old winery barrel room from the 1870s. Brick walls, candelabra sconces, wrought iron chandeliers, etc. It's gorgeous but most importantly, it's small and intimate. We get to start celebrate our marriage in an idyllic setting showered with love from our favorite people. It doesn't get better than that.
The day is going to be fantastic and we truly can't wait. I can only imagine walking down the aisle, looking to my left and my right, seeing faces I've known since I was born, faces I've known since high school and faces that are new to me in the past 10 years. It's going to be so remarkable, looking into their eyes and smiling, knowing we are all together, ready to celebrate and enjoy what will undeniably be the best day of Bryan's and my life. Then it's off to Maui, to unwind and reflect on everything that's just happened. Preferably with mai-tai in hand, but we'll see about that. Bryan will be feeling better, he'll be able to go to bed when he wants to (no more chemo timeline nonsense) and we'll be able to do what we want, when we want. After six days of relaxation (we wish it was longer!), we'll come back to our life in L.A. We'll be exactly the same, with one fantastic difference:
Bryan will be my husband. And I'll be his wife. Together, we'll be the Bishops. And we'll be unstoppable.
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