Friday morning, Christmas Eve.  I wake up in my brand-new master suite, beside my loving husband–the one I waited for my whole life–and pad into our just-finished master bathroom, complete with gorgeous tiling, glass-encased shower, pristine soaking tub, and enormous walk-in closet (built by the hands of The Husband and his dad).  Then I pick up the toothpaste and want to scream.

I follow this up by heading toward our now-empty king-sized bed and, ignoring the cozy new comforter and higher-than-we-should-have-sprung-for-thread-count sheets, release a wall-shaking sigh, the sigh of martyrs heard ’round the world, as I jerk said sheets around in a resentful solo bed-making session.

Is there anyone out there who has held her dreams in the palm of her hand, stared them in the face, and managed to find something to complain about…anyone?  Why am I the only one raising my hand?

And now, as I type these words while nestled in our new furniture with TH reading beside me, the glare of sunlight bounces off the whitest of snows and through our window, lighting up my computer screen and blinding my eyes and interrupting my thoughts.  Again, I sigh deeply.

Is there anything my imperfect heart, given its way, won’t try to spoil?

All the great love stories and fairy tales and even romantic comedies conclude at the climactic kiss, and we as the audience are left to wonder what “happily ever after” actually looks like.  Surely Cinderella, having just escaped the daily drudgery of chimney-sweeping and floor-mopping, didn’t have to pick up a broom again, ever?  Surely the Prince squeezed the toothpaste from the bottom, like she did?  Surely he made the bed every day?

This part–the part after the wandering and searching, the part after the blind dates and hopelessness, the part after the white dress and I-dos–this is the part where a new life begins and we are left to figure out just what the hell that means and how we are supposed to survive it.  Flaubert believed that “anticipation is the purest form of pleasure”–and if that’s true (and how depressing if it is!)–then all of life prior to the day we get what we want is Christmas Eve, and the moment the plane touches down from the honeymoon is the sunrise of Boxing Day.

Last night, TH and I drove to pick up takeout and as he walked inside Taco Mac to retrieve it–gallantly sparing me from the cold–the song that we danced to at our wedding floated from my iPod and out of the car radio to meet me, sitting in the passenger seat.  Once upon a time I wore a flowing train and a veil, TH a tux, and we glided around a room filled with our nearest and dearest as YD played and sang this tune; present-day I wore pajama pants, greasy hair, and no makeup as I waited for cheese dip to appear.

I have never been good with The Day After.  All of the excitement leading up to The Big Event–birthdays, vacations, Christmas–becomes a black hole the moment the clock strikes midnight and I wake up the next morning to the remains of the party, wrapping paper and half-empty glasses and plates of crumbs, and a gnawing sadness.  And as I read emails and Facebook status updates full of the exclamation points and smiley faces of people who never ever seem to be down about anything— !!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 –I wonder if the brokenness that resides in various corners of our fallen world has touched my heart in some irretrievable way and I am destined to be a selfish, petulant, pessimistic whiner No Matter What.

This is what December 26 looks like for me.

But life is full of Boxing Days, not to mention the three-day-period from Good Friday to Easter, and as one who is self-aware enough to know that my natural state is closer to snark than emoticons, I have to cling to the truth.  I have to preach it to myself over and over, have to tell the story to myself until the scales fall from my eyes and the wax clears from my ears and the traffic on 400 starts moving.  I have to remember that the only No Matter What that exists for me began on December 25…and never went away.  I have to believe that Flaubert was wrong, that toothpaste is not a life-or-death issue, that–as TH reminded me the other day–we can laugh about these things.  When the decorations have been stowed away and the lights have been dimmed and the empty boxes and wrapping paper populate the curb–then is the time when, finally knowing what was inside the gift I had waited to open, I can actually hold it in my hand…or, more often, be held by it.  And I can watch as Life, not anticipation but the Real Thing, unfolds in its own way and time, with its own laughter and tears, in so many forms but always the kind that loves even my greasy hair and pajama pants and makes my heart anything but irretrievable.