The Big Girl Pants With Nobody in Them

I have heard that Europeans vacation for weeks and sometimes months at a time.

I just got back from Cancun for a wedding and was gone only 4 days, and it felt like a lifetime.

My in-box at work is still burgeoning and everyone keeps commenting on my tan as if it is some kind of skin disease that's screaming out, "irresponsible employee!"

I am exhausted in the good way. The way that you feel after being sun-drenched for hours on end while sipping fruity concoctions to Mariachi music.

It was a much needed escape. And one in which I learned a little more about my ever evolving self. At the rehearsal dinner the mother of the bride asked if I would be giving a toast at the wedding, I shrugged and choked on some water.

"I wasn't really planning on it."

Her eyes widened and she stammered, "But you are a writer, so your speech should be really good."

I blinked twice. Maybe three times.

"Um...if there is an opportunity then I will give one, I guess."

Talk about pressure.

And then I started imagining I would give a speech like Rachel McAdams in The Wedding Crashers where I say all the wrong things, and people would be shoving salmon around on their plates, trying not to make eye contact with me.

The next morning I took off to the gym to do some brainstorming. I do my best thinking, and now I guess "speech writing", when the blood is flowing. I climbed onto the treadmill, did a few lackadaisical stretches, plugged in my iPod, and began sprinting towards my award winning wedding toast.

I was mouthing the words to myself, coming up with cute anecdotes which included phrases like, "fairy tale", "happy ever after", and "meant to be".

And as I was formulating these stale, stereotypical thoughts that sounded pretty but held no water, I couldn't help but be silenced by the beauty around me.

The treadmill was set up against an entire wall of windows. Perched on the edge of a cliff, all you could see was vastness of Caribbean Sea. It was a blue so blue, that I caught myself thinking it wasn't real at certain times, and that I was on some kind of virtual workout machine.

The waves would crash against jetty's in succinct rhythm with the music I was listening to. And I got goosebumps a handful of times just witnessing the beauty of God, and the way His spirit played tag with the foaming waves.

I felt clumsy with my little thoughts, when I was witnessing such perfection in creation.

At the end of my run I had come up with a pretty good speech, I thought.

I would start out by saying, "As I was preparing what I was going to say to my best friend on her wedding day I couldn't help but want to talk about Fairy Tales and happily ever after's. Although the more I thought about it the more I realized there is no happy ever after."

I would pause for dramatic effect as someone would yell from the back, "Get that kill-joy off the mic!"

I would smile and raise a hand so that they know I was going somewhere with this.

"The truth is there will not be one day where you wake up and get your happy ever after in the mail. Love isn't that definitive. There aren't perfect beginnings and endings, there are just chapters. So as you begin this new chapter of your life together I want to wish you not one, but a hundred happy ever after's, through each chapter of your life as you grow, change, hurt each other, forgive each other, and discover each other every day of your life.

I know that the love you two have, will not create some perfect ending, but that it will sustain and make a beautiful life together."

I would raise my glass, all would join in and I would tearfully choke out,

"Here's to a beautiful beginning, and to loving each other one chapter at a time!"

Applause would compete with the thunderous ocean, and I would take a bow.

Well, that didn't happen. My speech never happened.

There was no opportunity for it.

And to be honest I am truly glad. It's funny because I felt that I was obligated to give some memorable toast, but the truth was that my contribution came a day before, and it was one that no one heard or could pat me on the back for.

It was a quiet honesty.

The bride had a stressful moment in which she became too burnt, and her shoulders peeled to reveal pink and painful skin.

She was tearing up because she was told you are supposed to feel the most beautiful on your wedding day, and that she was feeling ugly.

I told her that was bull! That she did look beautiful, like every bride does, but that she needed to understand that whole "most beautiful" thing was just something that the 70 billion dollar wedding industry wanted her to believe, and encouraged her to be willing to pony up the dough for.

On my wedding day I broke out around my eyes, never did shed those 15 pounds that everyone said I would, and my up-do fell out half way through the reception. I didn't feel as beautiful as everyone said I would.

Instead I have had odd moments of beauty, and these are moments that happened long after "I Do". Ones in which my husband can't stop staring at me when I have no make up on and am humming mindlessly or dancing when I don't think he can see me. Ones in which I am flushed from a day in the garden, or one in which I see God doing something through me that I know I am not capable of on my own. Like forgiveness, or creativity.

The wedding was beautiful, and the setting was so romantic.

As I am on this journey to discovering that I don't have to be the writer, the actor, the singer, or the center of attention all the time because of what I have been predisposed to, I am discovering that sometimes being a whisper to someone who needs to hear it is a thousands times better than being a spokesperson to a room full of anxious listeners.

I was content to quietly listen to other toasts, all of which were more beautiful and heartfelt than mine anyway. Not to mention I didn't perform in order to please anybody else.

So while I didn't put on my big girl pants and give a speech that I was afraid of giving, the act of not acting was just as scary.

And even more meaningful.