Riding off into the sunset with a prince is cool and all, but real life is so much more fulfilling.
Remember when you'd press the rewind button on a VCR and see your movie reset itself in real time?
Flailing limbs, characters walking backwards, mouths moving in reverse — all amid a fuzzy black and white grainy backdrop. And right when you'd found the exact moment you were looking for, you'd hit pause before starting to watch it again.
Yeah, I live for those moments.
When I was nineteen, I stepped into a cavernous university lecture hall that threatened to swallow me whole.
In a sea of three hundred faces, only one was familiar. I had a friend in this class who was in a wheelchair, so she was usually easy to spot in a crowd.
I made a beeline for the usual spot where I sat during class. It was right in the middle of the lecture hall, where I could turn and talk to her from her designated accessible seated spot in the row above me. She wasn't at her spot yet, so I texted her. It turns out she decided to skip class that day to rush for a sorority.
Panic and social anxiety set in quickly after that.
I no longer had a friend in the class and was lost amidst a sea of three hundred students. What would I do to make the next two hours of my life less painful?
The person sitting next to me stared rather intently at his phone. I tried to make eye contact and smile at him, but he never looked at me. Not sure what was up with Mr. Phone Guy. I just wanted to make a friend, but damn, I didn't realize he was that anti-social.
Guess this was going to be a long class.
Our professor started the lecture and eventually gave us discussion questions, where, gasp, we were forced to interact with one another in groups. I looked at Mr. Phone Guy with cynical skepticism since he refused to look in my direction earlier and introduced myself.
I figured I would discuss our professor's questions and never speak to him again.
Oh, how wrong I was.
At the end of the lecture, the professor told us to get our group members' numbers so we could continue to be in touch throughout the semester.
So Mr. Phone Guy had my number from the night we first met.
That night, he sent me a text asking me how to pronounce my name since it isn't pronounced how it's spelled. He also had a unique name that was very much not Mr. Phone Guy, so I asked him the same question in return.
I didn't know that when he initiated the conversation, the texts wouldn't stop for nine years.
I didn't know that Mr. Phone Guy would end up being the most caring, patient, and loving man in the world.
I didn't know that he would be my first and only boyfriend. I'll be calling him my husband very soon.
As the day draws closer, I've been asked by friends and relatives whether I dreamed of a fairytale wedding. Did I want a big, poufy dress? A huge celebration with family and friends? Endless tears shed as we read our vows to each other?
The truth is…no, I never dreamed about what my wedding would be like. It was just a blank space in my life reserved for a moment that hadn't yet happened.
The closer we get to this future event that will bring us together for life, I find myself hitting rewind.
Moving backward, grazing over flailing limbs and laughing until our stomachs hurt, a long video call that would last until eight in the morning. And hitting pause on the moment we met, the moment where, in the span of a two-hour university lecture, we found the person we wanted to spend our lives with.
I want to caress nineteen-year-old me's face and tell her that she could pack away any lingering doubts she had among the butterflies.
Since this was my first relationship, I was terrified about everything I said or did. So I gave him the opportunity to bow out early.
I am a Christian and decided to wait until marriage to have sex. I told him this less than a month into dating, as I didn't want him to be disappointed. He doesn't share my beliefs, so I thought it would be best to let him know about mine early. He wouldn't have to be tied down to the promises I had made between me and God.
He said he was okay with waiting, and I didn't believe him. What nineteen-year-old willingly gives up sex for an unknown amount of time, especially since he had no religious beliefs behind that decision to wait?
The years passed, and I would always check in with the same questions:
Are you sure you’re still into me?
Are you sure you’re okay with waiting?
Are you not afraid you’re missing out on someone better?
He always reassured me that he didn't mind waiting and that I was the one for him, although I didn't think he'd be waiting for quite this long. His response still baffles me every time I ask.
It's funny how an exciting event like a wedding gives you the urge to revisit the past. The fairy tales don't show you those bumpy moments — those moments of indecision, where things have the potential to go awry.
He was the only person I ever dated, so everyone around me was asking me why I was still with the same guy.
Why didn't I play the field, especially since an app on your phone could summon thousands of men within a ten-mile radius at your fingertips? How would I know whether he was the best there was?
During those moments of doubt, I would press rewind. I would remember how I got here and how each moment carved out the stepping stones for the next phase of our relationship.
Have you rewound something you were watching to try and find elements you missed when you were distracted?
Maybe there was a snippet of dialogue you didn’t quite catch, or a key plot point you missed that made the scenes that followed confusing.
I do that with our rewind moments all the time.
Especially with everyone around me telling me I was doing this whole relationship thing wrong, I would try to find something I had missed in the memories I looked back on so fondly.
Did he say something wrong? Was that comment he made breakup-worthy? Should I look for someone better? The questions I asked him were now ones I turned back on myself.
And no matter how often I looked, I couldn't find anything wrong. There was no desire to leave my partner. There was nothing that people said that could sway the feeling I had in my gut.
How did I know he was the one if I never dated anyone else? I have no answer for you, except that I just knew.
We rarely fought, and I felt safe and warm in his presence. While my friends were coming to me with their relationship woes or were frustrated that another dude ghosted them on Tinder, I had a loving, stable partner.
I had someone who cared about my day and what I was interested in, and who supported me in anything I wanted to pursue. I had someone who let me be my own person and live my own life before we came back and shared how our days had been together.
Looking back now, those comments I got from other people came from a well-meaning place. But it was just noise and a distraction from what I knew to be true.
My family and friends were the people who don't know how to shut up during a movie.
Ugh, don't you just hate it when people do that?!
One minute, you're invested in a scene, and the next, Aunt Carol is saying that she'd seen the hot main character in something else before and couldn't remember where. You're pulled out of the moment, and your attention wanders elsewhere.
The doubts raised about my relationship were why I missed seeing the beauty of those rewind moments in the first place.
When you’re busy commenting on someone else’s story, you might miss that story unfolding right in front of you.
I will never stop revisiting the moments that got us to where we were meant to be, even when the memories get as grainy and blurry as the frames of a VHS tape.
Rewind moments over fairy tales, always.
Mr. Phone Guy is the number one supporter of my writing, so I know he'll read this. I want him to know that I love him, and I'm excited for the next chapter of our lives. I will write amazing vows that will make him cry on our wedding day (even though he will try his hardest not to).
While I have always loved dazzling fairy tales about princes and princesses, I think our story is so much better. This is real life, and we're doing it together.
I'm thrilled to do it all with him, whether it's hitting rewind or pressing play.