Daring To Question The Great and Powerful Oz

It was a hushed, late night, pitch dark outside. The house was very quiet except for my clicking fingers on my keyboard, and the glowing light of the laptop screen.

I was writing my heart out in email.

I was sharing with a friend my response to her challenge the day before, also written in email, that I was doing something she felt uncomfortable with in my wedding preparations.

She told me she didn’t feel the celebration contained the formalities she thought important. She thought we shouldn’t call it a wedding if we weren’t going to actually get a license.

The night was quiet. It was very late, after midnight. Very unusual for me. I couldn’t sleep because I just couldn’t stop thinking about her email I had received, that I was now replying to.

My inner immediate reaction (not the email I wrote in reply) to her email was, on first read, something like this:

Yes, it was that mature.

My stomach tightened, my heart sped up just a little, a shot of adrenaline zinged through my arms as I grasped what she was saying and read her words that she did not agree with what I was planning for the ceremony.

I have an automatic timer that goes off when I begin to say the word “how dare you/she/he/they/this….”

Because I know I’m being totally, completely, utterly defensive.

How dare they? Like they should be afraid? To dare question the Great and Powerful Oz Grace Bell?

As I couldn’t sleep, I knew it was time to inquire.

Stressful thoughts were multiplying. I was beginning to question the entire friendship.

Is it true that she doesn’t know me? That she should know better? That she’s too conservative? That she’s not the person I thought she was (in other words—WORSE than I thought she was)?

Is it true that she should go to hell?

Argggh! But! This is wrong! She shouldn’t be so contrary! What does it matter to her how the ceremony goes, how it’s recorded or planned, what traditions are included, whether it’s an official license or not (my husband and I weren’t sure what we even wanted at that point)?

She’s in my business!

Gulp.

Is it absolutely true? Is she not allowed to speak up? Is it true that if she says what she thinks, she’s a snob?

I am in favor of people telling the truth. Whether it hurts or not. I love the truth. I adore real, passionate, heartfelt words.

Communication at the core, authentic, most truthful level is my FAVORITE THING. Um…usually.

And even when it’s not, my closest friends are people I connect with and talk with with complete openness, even if we’re afraid.

How do I react when I believe someone is speaking against me, challenging my core beliefs, threatening me in some important way?

I want to write them off, get away from them, cut them out of my life, ignore them, act nice but back out of the room slowly.

Or I might wish they die in a plane crash, off the top of my head. I mean, I want them DESTROYED.

I feel really afraid, even if my reaction appears angry on the inside. I know that what I am…..

…..is terrified.

But who would I be without the thought that she was frightening? That she was wrong, critical, too conservative, and a snob?

I would realize that she brings up excellent agonizing questions, that the whole nation is actually debating. Whether to get a marriage license or not, to declare assets together as a business/economic entity or NOT.

(And I love equal rights for everyone).

In my heart I was getting married with a deep emotional and inner value of commitment. But I KNOW emotional commitments are enormously likely to change over time.

They are more likely to change that to remain stable.

And my past experience is that when the relationship grew more distant (in my previous marriage) that the economic end of the marriage was eventually dissolved.

It’s called divorce.

So for me, there was NOTHING stable about committing to marriage on paper, with the county, the state, the nation, one other human.

My friend expressed my deepest angst and anxiety about what was true for me. I did not know. In fact, I had no idea if this whole marriage/commitment thing was good for much of anyone.

My inquiry was ultimately with the government, laws, marriage, and what I had learned socially. I was mad at my society and my conditioning. And mad at her for learning the same conditioning.

Sigh.

Who would I be without the thought that she shouldn’t speak her mind? That she isn’t expressing something important, meaningful, and loving?

I would read and re-read her email, and see that she didn’t call me names, she didn’t berate me, she was loving, kind, direct and caring.

Without the thought that this was wrong….

….I relaxed so deeply, knowing that there is no absolute answer. I have no idea what the future will be. There is no future.

And after a wonderful discussion with my soon-to-be partner that day after I received the email, I searched online for marriage licenses “just to find out what’s involved these days” with this thing I am not even sure I agree with.

Oh. The offices to get licenses just happened to be about 2 miles away from our home. And this one night of the week, only on Tuesdays (it was Tuesday) it was open later into the evening. It was open right then, for another hour.

So my partner and I said to each other “Let’s go over there and get a license. What the heck?”

So we did.

Turning my thoughts around, I saw that I was the snob, I was the conservative one, she was freer and more liberal in that she could express herself to me.

And what did it matter if she were not the person I thought she was? I wasn’t thinking well of her in that moment….so….good. I was not the kind, generous person I thought I was.

Thank you everyone who has “dared” to tell me honestly what they think. Even if it sounds mean. Even if I don’t like it, or feel quite desperately frightening by it.

That dark night, after inquiry, after my stimulating discussion with my now-husband, I wrote an email full of honest love and gratitude to my friend.

And then pushed SEND.