They Can Also Be Beautiful

This past weekend, one of my best friends from college married a man who complements and strengthens her, who she laughs with and cooks with and lovingly encourages. It was a beautiful and moving weekend. I was honored to be a bridesmaid, and was also asked to "MC" a night of toasting the bride-and-groom-to-be (poor groom... I quickly realized that things like this wind up being more along the lines of "toasting the bride, roasting the groom"), and to give the final toast. I share now my toast for the happy couple:

"All beginnings are difficult."

My first semester of college, I took a freshman seminar called Bad Girls. (Seriously.) I was so excited for this first class, feeling a little bit rebellious just for having signed up: I'm taking a class called Bad Girls! That's so... bad!! On the first day, Professor Harder (seriously) walked in to the room and posed a question to the class: "How many of you consider yourselves 'good girls'?" Two hands flew up - mine, and this redheaded girl's (S). We looked at each other. We were seventeen. We were terrified. It would still take us a little time to become best friends.

All beginnings are difficult.

Four years later, S and I took a little road trip to Mississippi, as we both transitioned from college to the real world. She left me there after helping me settle in. She lived in Boston then, and dutifully took my phone calls when I would cry about my lonely first few months in Jackson. "It's okay," S would assure me, "My mom's family is from the South, and they're fine."

All beginnings are difficult.

I was already a solidly born-again-Southerner when I first heard from S about J. "So there's this guy," she said. "And he's smart, and funny, and can cook, and I think he might be The One. But..." (And I hope she doesn't kill me for sharing this.) "... not yet. He's not quite 'ripe' yet."

J, don't feel bad: All beginnings are difficult.

Left out in the sun long enough, most things ripen. Living together in more than one warm place, S and J's relationship bloomed, and now here we are, celebrating their marriage - and it occurred to me: a wedding marks a new beginning, but it's not the difficult part. A wedding is a joyful time, when, surrounded by loved ones, bride and groom have an easy beginning to a journey that will not always be easy. But walking hand in hand, I know that S and J... the genuinely "good girl," and her ever-ripening man... will find each new beginning a little less difficult.