The best stories are the ones that are true.

I grew up on a steady diet of fiction, from the books I held constantly in my hands to the movies I paid half-price to see at matinees on the weekend with an iced Dr. Pepper and a bucket of popcorn.  The stories played out on page and screen riveted my attention and imagination and left me wondering when my life was going to resemble them.  The characters I collected in my memory always triumphed after a conflict that was over within two hundred pages or two hours.  Meanwhile, I was getting older and ticking off goals on a list that should have led to my happy ending.  When it didn’t, and I instead spent two years in (identity) crisis mode, I figured it was time to throw the list away and pursue an adventure in real life rather than watch someone else’s unfold.

That is the short version of the story that led me to New York.

I’ve often wondered where I would be now if I had gotten everything I ever wanted, everything I deemed in my infinite wisdom that I should have.  I got a glimpse of that possibility this past weekend, when a friend I’ve hung onto was describing a boyfriend I didn’t, and I remembered what I used to think, oh-so-mistakenly, constituted a good relationship.  I heard about qualities that hadn’t changed, and I thought about all my qualities that would never have changed had I refused to try another path.  How much of an attitude I would have (comparatively speaking).  How broken and alone I would be, how angry and sad. How I would never have met the Guy in a Suit or my New York girlfriends or, really, God.  How I wouldn’t have had my bachelorette weekend in New York City a few days ago.

The Sis and I flew on a tiny American Airlines plane to LaGuardia because it was the cheapest ticket.  We got what we paid for in turbulence and three-second free-falls.  We landed and headed to our midtown hotel, where we met up with two of my college best friends.  The four of us ate lunch at the Burger Joint in Le Parker Meridien hotel, a restaurant that will teach you not to judge a book by its cover once you’ve crossed the palatial marble hotel lobby, pulled back a velvet curtain, and waited in line to order at a counter and sit at a plastic table in a wood-paneled room plastered with rock posters.  Four burgers and two grease-stained bags of fries later, we headed down to Magnolia Bakery at Rockefeller Center for dessert, where I further cemented my fear of living out my remaining years without their buttercream cupcakes.  Then we met up with one of my New York girls, AC, outside of the Newscorp building on Sixth Avenue and headed inside to begin the tour I had pre-arranged with my fellow grand juror from the Special Narcotics division.  You know, another time in my life–in the form of two weeks of obligation–that I resented and fought against…then loved?  B. led us around the building and even into a couple of live tapings, where fears of cell phones and bodily functions erupting on air were never realized but we did learn a lot about production and how those Fox News Alerts run so rampant.

Friday night, ten of us met at Sushi Samba downtown to consume unheard of quantities of the dish I’ve been missing out on lately because the BF views it only as appetizer material and not a full meal.  Cocktails abounded, a DJ spun tunes, and I wondered when I had gotten so old as to notice how short and tight all the girls’ clothes are and wonder why that music has to be so damn loud! After dinner we cabbed it to Flute, a champagne bar in Gramercy that apparently–like Sushi Samba–doubles as a booty-thumping club DJed by a fro-sporting, blue-jean-shorts-wearing white guy.  We entertained ourselves by draining a magnum of champagne and reviewing our knowledge of Urban Dictionary in voices loud enough to be heard over the music.  When our waiter walked up just as BE was yelling, “Doo doo!” I knew it was time to call it a night.

The next day, the Sis, JB, RC, and I had brunch on the patio at Blue Water Grill in Union Square and walked around the Green Market, then we took the 6 uptown and walked to the Met.  For about the third time of the five or so that I’ve been there, I asked at the ticket booth whether we had to pay admission if we were headed straight to the roof bar.  I guess, historically, I’m more a fan of brews and views than paintings and sculptures.

Saturday night was the main event.  AW hosted the lingerie shower at her place, and I was greeted there with a life-sized cardboard cutout of Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen, an array of cheese and champagne, and pink bags full of underwear.  I also got to watch as the Sis, my college friends, and my New York friends’ worlds collided–truly an act of God.  They took turns asking me questions that the BF had previously answered about us, then compared my answers to his.  Being reminded of all we have learned about each other in the past three years, and surrounded by people who have known me anywhere from that long to ten times that long, I was overwhelmed with how differently my life has turned out from the way I planned it.  Here I am, getting married a good ten years after I thought I would (yes, I planned to be a child bride).  Here I am, planning a life with a man like none I’ve ever known or had the imagination (or experience) to conceive existed.  Here I am, hearing the collective laughter of my closest friends, half of whom I would never have laid eyes on if my life didn’t veer gloriously off the course I planned for it in times and places I hadn’t known were dark and small until light and largeness and pink bags of underwear seeped through.

My story has been blessed beyond a two-hour running time.  It has taken periods of two weeks, two years, and every day to tell. And eventually, it will be told in the halls of eternity as I go back and forth about it with the one who held the pen the whole time.

Ed. note: I threw up the whole way back.