Thirtysomething

I Will NOT Freak Out

I was fairly organized the Friday before and morning of the wedding. I decided that I needed to be regimented to prevent a freak out. Friday I made a point of going to the gym. I ran some last minute errands. Ron and I hung out in the apartment doing some last minute packing. Deidre and I went for manicures and pedicures. I had decided in advance that I would have a few glasses of wine at the rehearsal dinner to 1. calm my nerves and 2. make myself sleepy so I might actually sleep that night. While I was nervous as hell during the rehearsal and during the dinner (after all, this was the first time some of the most important people in my life were interacting together--including with my parents and Ron's parents), my plan worked and by the end of the night, I was pretty calm. I kept putting my glass down and losing it, but I think I had about a total of 3 glasses of wine.

I spent the night at the hotel and the next morning I got up at 7:30am. I went to the hotel gym and ran on the treadmill for 20 minutes. It wasn't a real workout, but I wanted some release for my nerves. I went back to my room, showered, put some Norah Jones and did a little primping. I put on comfy clothes. I felt pretty calm, but my nervous stomach felt otherwise and me and my bathroom became fast friends. I drank some water and ate some of the fruit that my bridesmaids had stocked my fridge with the day before. Hope and Kimberly called and wanted to know what I wanted from Dunkin Donuts. Of course, I wanted coffee and a donut regardless of the nervous stomach. Hope and Kimberly waltz into my room--I had this HUGE suite--and I notice Kimberly is wearing sweatpants with high-heeled ivory satin shoes. "What the hell is that about?"I ask her. She decided she wanted to "scuff" the shoes so they weren't slippery--a concept I totally understand. That she decided to actually wear the shoes with sweatpants while going to Dunkin Donuts, that's what I found hysterical.

Deidre was getting her hair done by her hair stylist across town, but Hope, Kim and I had quite a feast of fruit, bagels, donuts, juice and coffee. My hair stylist, Markus, arrived and started straightening and re-curling my hair. By 10 a.m. I had to jet over to a salon around the corner to get my makeup done. As it turns out, I jetted over there with my hair half curled and half-pinned up. I looked like I just rolled out of a trailer park, let me tell you. Still, I was calm. I noticed the Kimberly and Hope kept looking at me, somewhat quizzically (is that a word?) and I think it was because they expected me to be a bit more nervous.

Marlene, the makeup artist, was very nice, gave me flavored water and made little chit-chat. She excused herself for a minute to get something from the supply room and suddenly, the world started spinning for me. I gripped the chair I was sitting in and suddenly a voice in my head that I could actually hear said "You're going to freak out". My heart started racing, my stomach lurched and I began praying for Marlene to come back to talk about something, anything to distract me. Over and over I two alternating thoughts "I am going to freak out" and "You have to keep your shit together." Somehow I knew that if I allowed myself to be nervous, it would snowball and it would be a bad, bad scene.

Thankfully, Marlene came back and since I had to pretend everything was normal, I started to feel normal again. Deidre showed up shortly thereafter to get her makeup done and since Marlene was doing a fabulous job, we focused on my makeup. I loved, loved, loved it. She put less on than she did for my trial. But we all looked at it and it just seemed like lighter was better that day. She even shimmered my arms, neck and chest area. I was positively giddy and left Deidre to have her makeup finished while I went back to the hotel.

That was the closest to freaking out that I came that day. Right before I walked down the aisle I was nervous, like visibly shaking nervous, but it was different somehow. It was a better nervous that what almost happened at the salon.

I'm not sure why I told you this story first, of all the good and funny stories there are. But it's a starting point. There's much more to come.

posted by DJ Heavy D @ 6:26 AM