James Colley has never planned far ahead. But now that he’s in love – grossly in love – things have changed.
I’m procrastinating. It’s unusual for me. I love to throw myself headfirst at deadlines and see who falls first.
Sure, I’ll slack off from time to time, and I’m certainly not above doing a half-arsed job on a chore – but procrastinating isn’t one of my vices.
But this time it’s bigger. I’m not writing a stand-up set, script or article. I’m writing my own wedding vows. Or at least I should be. I’m not writing much of anything right now.
I’d had a first line for a while. “Miranda,” I would say, “you’re making a huge mistake.”
But a dear friend gave me advice that I’ve needed to hear for most of my life: Don’t ruin this just to make a joke.
Fair. But now, I’m entirely stuck.
It’s not that I have nothing to say. I have too much to say. I’m one of those annoying people who has been swept up into a fairytale romance. I didn’t even have much say in the matter. She contacted me. She demanded dinner. She made me fall in love with her.
From that moment, my whole life has fundamentally changed. It’s the most sickening cliché and I promise you that even while telling it I’m reaching for the paper bag. But it’s true. Neither of us were expecting much, but somehow we grew together, slowly transforming into one of those endlessly happy couples you see in the photos they sell with the frame.
We’re only a couple of months away from the wedding and, for the first time, I’ve started to peek my head above the organisational dramas, seating dramas, family dramas, friend dramas and venue dramas to look towards married life.
And yes, I can feel the condescending sighs from the already-married or the once/twice/thrice-married reading the words of this wide-eyed lamb.
But, in my defence, long-term planning has never my forte. If I were capable of such a thing I would have never entered comedy. It’s not exactly an industry with swish retirement plans.
The future never really felt like my concern. I was an exceptionally large child growing up with weight issues from as early as I can remember and at some stage it was drilled into my head that people like me didn’t have a long life-expectancy. It was just always there as an underlying assumption. I wouldn’t have that long here, so why worry about it?
In some respects, I’m thankful to that feeling. Sure, it has been incredibly corrosive to my psyche in a hundred different ways, but it also helped make me who I am. I write like my arm is falling off. I don’t tend to sweat the big things, and I take everything a day at a time. I like those things about me. If they had to grow from resignation and fear, then that’s fine. Roses have to grow in fertiliser. I’m not here to prosecute nature.
But this all changed when I met Miranda. She offered me something different.
Partly, it was possibility. The idea that good times were ahead was far from a certainty. I’d hardly entertained the idea. Now, I can believe in it. It’s still not guaranteed. Nothing in life is ever guaranteed. But there’s a chance. There’s something to work towards.
The second and most important part was the belief that I could deserve such a thing. Importantly, it was not that I deserved happiness with her. It was that I deserved it on my own, irrespective of anything else. That’s a belief that I’d never really had before. It still makes me a little uncomfortable. Even now, my natural instinct is to undercut it, to make some joke at my own expense because that thought sits alone, too vulnerable, ripe for the picking. But, right now, I won’t. It’s alright to be genuine and vulnerable.
The promise of this relationship isn’t a happy ending. It’s a happy journey all the way to the end. All of a sudden, the future looked like somewhere I might want to be.
My proposal was the first time I felt confident I’d made the right decision. I’m a constant second-guesser. Every breakfast order is a Sisyphean task. But this was simple. It made sense. I’m confident. I’m excited to start this new phase of our lives together.
All I have to do is write these damn vows.
This story was originally published in Ed#573.
James Colley writes comedy for television and print. His debut novel The Next Big Thing is out now.
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