I have had three consistent fantasies for a good part of my adult life.
You know the first one. It?s the Pretty Woman dream. The sales lady is rude to me, and I return the next day, with a huge hat, and bags galore, screaming Big Mistake. Then I go my daughter?s soccer game in a polka dot dress, and start fixing the dirt on the field.
The second, I am sitting next to Jennifer Lopez on a first class flight from Miami to LA. She is struck by my amazing fashion choice of a cropped sweater and 70?s style high waisted jeans, and my oily/glowy complexion. We start talking, and by the end of the flight, I have cancelled my hotel, am staying with her, Leah Remini is out, and I am her new best friend who she shares her most intimate beauty secrets with. Don?t tell, but it involves a contract, and the Devil.
The last fantasy. I befriend a twenty-something wide-eyed newly engaged girl, and she looks to me as Doc Brown from Back to the Future, and I can tell her all that will happen in her marriage, the good, the bad, the ugly. I mean, there has to be some benefit to being 42. As I often cry myself to sleep at night after a Bar Mitzvah because I may have molested one of the dancers and he has to go home to his mother who is probably younger than me, and tell her that work was rough that night, I have to think that there must be some benefit to my age. I have to know something by now? Right??? Right???
So sit back Mcfly, cause this is all you need to know.
- You are engaged! Exciting. The ring. The attention. It?s like a drug. Do you love everything about him? Does he seem perfect? Obviously he?s not, but this time in your life you should think he is. If you are thinking there is something that really bothers you about him, but it can change over time, don?t call the caterer. Most people don?t change that dramatically. If he?s an ahole now, wait till real shit happens. If he?s unbelievable lazy and messy, you will want to Bobbit him when he is asleep.
- Make sure you want the same things, not just where you go on your honeymoon. I?m talking down the road things. Kids, where you want to live, how you want to live. Stuff like that. Be honest with each other at the beginning and you can avoid a lot of tension in your future. My husband and I argued a lot at the beginning of our marriage because I decided I hated the cold and wanted to move to Florida. To be fair, before I had kids it never bothered me much and I had an awesome shearling coat that I loved. But it wasn?t fair to Scott that I changed our plan and we argued a lot about it.
- You will have kids, you will have stress. Forever. Make sure you handle stress together. If you are not a team, they will eat your alive. Like the Walking Dead.
- Take care of your relationship like you do a cold. I hate getting colds. As soon as I feel it coming, I do loads of tea and immune system vitamins. I fight it, and I get better quickly. (but don?t tell the family I?m better)
Do the same for your relationship. I think every couple knows when the illness is coming. Pay attention and spend time together. Talk, laugh, stare at each other if you have to. Neglect it, and it?s the full-blown flu.
- The most important advice I can give you for your future. Don?t freak over the small stuff. It really means so little. You will be hit with some doozies. Save your energy for those. Your kid not getting into the good nursery school class is not that major. They eat their boogers in all the classes and have to poop with the door open.
Just have fun in this adventure called your life. You kind of want to do this just once. On my wedding night, my Vera Wang wedding dress ended up on the floor with broken buttons, and I was a lot skinnier, and my saline breasts developed really late in life, so I couldn?t wear it again, and I don?t want to get another one.
One more thing. Superficial, but just as important. In the future, your medicine cabinet will have products called Wrinkles No More. So sunscreen your ass off now.
