After I Do

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

It was like when you aren’t sure what you want for dinner and someone suggests Chinese, and only then do you realize how badly you wanted a burger.

The words husband and wife felt as if they had a shine to them. They were simply more fun to say than all the other words we knew.

My heart is truly broken. And I know that even if it mends, it will look different, feel different, beat differently.

“Isn’t it nice,” he says, “once you’ve outgrown the ideas of what life should be and you just enjoy what it is?”

Unconditional love is the freedom to follow your heart and still have a home.

“You know, one day, it will be me,” I say as I leave the kitchen. “And when it is, you can serve all the cilantro you want.”

Sincerely, Lost in Los Angeles

Rachel, Thumper, and I are supposed to go hiking this morning, but for the first time, we truly cannot find a parking space. We circle around the area for about thirty minutes before we all lose our patience. “Brunch instead?” Rachel asks. “Sure,” I say. Eating brunch is exactly the opposite of hiking, and yet it feels like the natural move. “Where to?”

Maybe it doesn’t matter if you need someone during the everyday moments of your life. Maybe what matters is that when you need someone, they are the one you need. Maybe needing someone isn’t about not being able to do it without them. Maybe needing someone is about it being easier if they are by your side.

Why do we do this? Why do we undervalue things when we have them? Why is it only on the verge of losing something that we see how much we need it?

I often think of my grandmother as the old lady at the dinner table. But she’s seen generations. She was a child once. She was a teenager. A newlywed. A mother. A widow.

Look at the things we are capable of in the name of the people we love.