The coolest thing about having your bachelorette party in an au natural setting like Yosemite, CA, is that everyone is forced to strip down to their most elemental selves. Cocktail conversation quickly becomes redundant. "What do you do" won't keep you warm, but "where's that extra pair of gloves?" will.
10 of my best friends braved 32 weather, no hot water, hungry bears, and uncomfortable sleeping pads with me. That didn't even cover the litany of discomforts, some of them had injuries that made hiking down a mountain an exercise in pain management. Others had had 5 weeks worth of bronchitis, with doctor's orders to not get on a plane. All of them (Jon excluded) were sometimes so numb with cold, that basic linear logic was impossible.
This is probably why I absentmindedly left my bra in a sleeping bag somewhere. But I digress.
I'm glad they got to share Yosemite with me. I hiked those very same falls, 10 years ago, when I was a senior in college, on the brink of graduation. I wish I could remember what I did that year, but in between the haze of making out with Philosophy TA's and enough cheap tequila shots to induce projectile vomiting, I don't. I do remember feeling simultaneously overconfident and scared. Scared shitless, of the unknown, of the future, of having to carve out my niche in a world that wasn't ordered by exams and class schedules. Scared that after being an academic success, I was about to become a real world failure. Scared that what the oldies said was true, that the best days of my life were over, and that I was about to jump, feet first, into their world. A world of desk drudgery, paperwork monotony, and bad fluorescent lighting.
That year, I labored all the way up Vernall Falls, just as they did with me last weekend. It was springtime, after an uncharacteristically rainy season in California, and the falls were in their full majesty. A light mist blanketed the mountain range. The redwoods stood firm, roots sinking deep into the earth, branches laden with glossy green foliage. I learned a very important lesson that day. Perspective. These mountains and redwoods were here before I was born, and would continue existing after my death. All those human lives scooting up and down the trails, all the private heartaches and joys and angst - they were small and inconsequential in the grander scheme of things. Suddenly, figuring out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, NOW! NOW! NOW! became laughable.
I came back down the mountain. A little less scared, a lot more relaxed.
10 years later and teetering on the brink of marriage, some voices were piping up. Fear can feel like old familiar friend sometimes. What if you make a bad wife? What if marriage is nothing like you thought it would be? What if it makes you want to eat Krispy Kremes and sit on your fat ass all day? Forget about graduating college, getting married in Bev World is HUGE! Up there with winning the lottery, huge. And about twice as scary. If I graduated college and landed a lifelong career flipping burgers, it'd be a fuck up, but one that involved only me. "Fucking up" takes on a whole new significance when you get married. And I was, as most nice Chinese girls are, deathly afraid of fucking up. Without even realizing what I had done, I chose Yosemite for my bachelorette party. I didn't want the clatter and enforced sexuality of a Vegas affair. I wanted to commune with the mountains, listen to the falls, touch the redwoods.
Last weekend, as my best friends strapped on their backpacks and hiked up the trails with me, I was flooded with a sense of gratitude. As it turned out, Yosemite wasn't the only entity with a sense of history, I had one too. And they were right there with me, talking, laughing, breathing. I realized that I had nothing to fear. All that was present would become past, that much was inevitable. In the big picture, there is no such thing is "fucking up." There is only the passage of time, and whom you shared it with. Marriage means spending time with my best friend in the whole world. Nothing scary about that.
I came back down the mountain again. A little calmer, a little wiser, and a lot more grateful for what I had.
There exists a prototype of The Legendary Bachelorette, where the cocktails flow and the city lights stand in contrast to the beckoning glow of the home and hearth. Where we can live it up, Single Girl style, a last hurrah before the invariable onset of domestic boredom. I think we have it all wrong. I think the passages of life sit on a time continuum, and the whole idea of The Last Hurrah doesn't do justice to what really matters: your past, present, and future - coming together, and being at one.
So, Adventure Boyz and Girlz, this is for you. You all rock. Thank you for being a part of my journey. It meant the world to me. Maybe in my next phase of life, we'll all don our Indian names and pay a visit to our old friend Yosemite, again. In the spring or summer this time, I promise.
Also if someone finds a black bra (cup size AA, smells vaguely of 'Smores), you know my number.
