Hey hey kiddies.
I have a little story to tell you.
Once, Lisa (the woman who I will call wife in a day and a half) and I made a big deal about watching a sunset. We ran to our favorite sandwich shop, got two sandwiches, chips, and sodas, and drove to the Cliffhouse in San Francisco.
We watched as the sun started to wobble and morph its shape upon coming into ‘contact’ with the horizon and began to slowly sink below it.
“If you pay close attention,” Lisa told me, “you’ll see the green flash.”
“What green flash?”
She then went on with a cute story that she learned while going to school in San Diego that if you stare hard enough at a setting sun, the instant it fully dips below the horizon you see a green flash where the sun used to be.
I then explained to her that there was no green flash – that the green flash was an illusion caused by minute and very temporary damage to your eye caused by staring at the sun for so long. By staring at the sun for so long an image of the sun becomes burned into your retina and, once the sun is below the horizon and no longer around to drown out any optical illusion, all you see is what was imprinted on/in your eye – the green flash.
Regardless of story or explanation, it was still a romantic sunset, and it was still a terrific kiss.
Why did I tell you that story? Well, I just find it very appropriate given my current status. I’m 36 hours away from getting married, and my bachelorhood, my single life, is wobbling and morphing away on the horizon. But I’m not depressed. I’m not down on myself about it. Why? I’ll tell you why. I’m excited because there’s a green flash waiting for me, and after that, there’s a gorgeous woman waiting to kiss me.
So, to my bachelor life I tip my hat and I thank it for all the great times I had. I thank my bachelor life for providing girlfriends when I didn’t have anyone to watch Star Wars with, and I thank my bachelor life for providing friends to watch Star Wars with when there was a lack in girlfriends.
At twenty-eight I think it’s time to hang up my gloves. But don’t think that I dated a million chicks and shtooped them all and got drunk and screamed WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO out of ‘phat’ cars while cruising the main drags at night on the weekends. Quite the contrary, my bachelorhood was primarily filled with doing really, really, really mindless and stupid things. Staying up for 24 hours straight just to say I did it - eating large amounts of weird things, drinking large quantities of super-sugary sodas, and buying full series of toys just to say that I did it.
Bachelor life was fun. But at 28, not only do I have no more interest in staying up 24 hours straight, I don’t have the strength either. There was a time, my friends, but that time has passed. Now’s the time to come home every day to a gorgeous woman and get a kiss. Now’s the time for a green flash.
