Shining Star

Nostalgia week comes to an end today with this final and fifth post-

There was nothing safe about him. He wasn't my type in looks or what I thought was his personality. To say that he took a while to grow on me would be an understatement but then again, the feeling was mutual. After three years of dating on and off, H and I were to be married. It seemed like a handful of lifetimes had passed during those three years and especially now with just months to our wedding day we were worlds apart. San Diego for me and Okinawa, Japan for him. Between 3 a.m. phone calls, instant messaging and emails we were putting our wedding together. Sadly, because of this distance I never felt so alone. This man, whose smile promised me that we would 'live a life less ordinary', was so far away. So was my family and my entire slew of bridesmaids.

All the things I had been so excited to do I had to do alone. I picked out my dress solo, I spent hours trudging through department stores sifting through china patterns and glassware picking out what felt like our future and doing it entirely alone. All those invitations? I wrote them out myself. It is ironic that I watched a movie about the Marquis de Sade while making those things out. I had thought planning a wedding would be exciting and fun, but it was beginning to feel more like a chore. To top it off the playlist was due to the DJ and despite knowing all the various items I did not want played at our wedding (the hokey pokey and the electric slide make me twitch) H and I did not have a song. We had songs we liked but nothing spoke to us. Suddenly it seemed that finding our song was of the utmost importance. If I could figure this part out then maybe everything else would come together and we wouldn't feel quite so far apart.

Unfortunately everything I heard or had suggested to me seemed tired and played out. No to Etta James and Sinatra. 'Unforgettable' was entirely forgettable. Many songs just seemed to be dripping in a sugary sap that made me gag. Then one day during my lunch break I got in the car to run some errands and I heard it. Our song. The melody lifted my spirits and put a smile on my face. It brought tears to my eyes and all at once I knew that this song, this 1970's cheeseball of a song, was going to be our song. I put my car in park and just sat there and listened to the whole thing, grinning the entire time. We weren't together when we heard it but somehow it summed it all up for us. Napster enabled H to listen to it and he agreed that it was perfect. After that I played it continuously. Each time I heard it I felt closer to H despite being almost a world away.

It is not just our wedding song, but it is officially our song now. Shining Star, by The Manhattan's.


Read my latest at 23andMe- "Oligohydramnios, also known as low amniotic fluid, presents itself in only eight percent of pregnant women during some point in their pregnancy."