Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Yes, That's My Husband ~ Getting Married

To continue my story - I went to my apartment so that I could get ready for my wedding. I was too nervous to eat, which was a rare occurance for me. When I went to take a shower, I found that there was no hot water. (I found out later that the hot water heater had died, and the landlord replaced the unit.) I bathed quickly in cold water, fixed my hair, put on my makeup, and got dressed. I was ready in plenty of time, but I could not pin my corsage on my dress and make it stay in the proper place. Somehow, not being able to do that unravelled me. I fiddled with it until I had to leave or I would have been late, and I hate to be late.

Now I was living in my hometown of Brunswick, Maine, a place where I lived my whole life up to that point. The church was located on a one way street. There was so much on my mind, that I could not figure out at first how to go the right way down that street! It may sound crazy but I was not sure that my family or friends would talk to me after I married Buzz. What if they ostrasized me? What if they ostrasized me and my marriage did not work out? I would be moving to California when Buzz got his orders in October and I would be so far away from everyone.

I finally started driving the right way down the street and the church was located near the end of it. When Buzz and his best man crossed the street (they were Jaywalking) I almost hit them with my car! I was really shook up.

I parked my car and my friend Keith came over. His wife, Yvonne, was going to be my witness but Keith told me that she had car trouble and was stuck in Boston. Oh no! I asked him if he could be my witness and he agreed. He was very calm and managed to pin my corsage on so it stayed in place. I was ready.

The church was beautiful, with soft light coming in from stained glass windows and candles, which made it look romantic. My husband's best man, Keith, the minister, and his wife were there when we got married. I did not think about how I had originally envisioned our wedding because I was so concious of holding Buzz's hand.

We could only afford to stay one night at an inn, and the next day we went to the beach and back to the apartment. We stopped by and got Buzz's belongings from the barracks and it did not take long to move him in. Then, we put off the task that we were dreading. We called our families.

I called my family and they were angry about it, but did not say anything about not talking to me again. I felt sad and weary when I was done with the conversation. "Let's call my family now," Buzz said. He called them, and they were happy for us and asking when they were going to meet me. The only bad thing was that they kept asking why they were not invited to the wedding, a quesiton that they kept asking me for years, though I had never met them when I married Buzz.

We did not have any furniture with the apartment except for a beat up wardrobe. Buzz and I had gone out the weekend before and bought an old hide-a-bed sofa and a card table and chairs at a used furniture place. I was trying to get comfortable on the thin mattress for the hide-a-bed when Buzz turned on the light. "There are misquitoes in here!" he exclaimed. Of course there were - there were no screens on the windows and it was June. The misquitoes and I had gotten along okay the week before, but Buzz, despite his nickname, was not going to put up with them. He ended up closing all of the windows and swatting misquitoes with a fly swatter. Even after we turned off the light and tried to go to sleep, he would hear another one, so he would pop out of bed, turn on the light, and chase it around the apartment. So when I say that I did not get much sleep, it was because of misquitoes and not what you would think.

Eventually, we did get to sleep and I went out and bought screens for the windows the next day. We went on to have new adventures, which I shall blog about next.

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