One Perfect Moment In Time

Across the bay from Naples and down a set of medieval stairs hidden in the old centre of Sorrento you will find the small fisherman village of Marina Grande. Lined with restaurants offering that day’s catch, fresh pasta and homemade wine you can easily lose yourself in the old world charm of this place.



That is where this memory takes place, this one perfect moment in time.

In late April 2024, my husband (boyfriend at the time) and I took a trip to Italy. This was our first trip overseas together and also his first trip overseas in general. I was very anxious for most of this trip; not that I wasn’t having fun but I got it into my head that I needed to be the “perfect tourist and tour guide”. I didn’t eat gelato until the last day because all the places we passed had the mounds of gelato they (aka TikTok) tell you not to eat. I was jumbling the Italian I knew because I was so nervous to speak it without a perfect accent. (Yes, this perfectionism is something I have been working hard to break but more on that another time.)

But, I was also nervous for a totally different reason. I knew for a fact I was getting engaged on this trip. So every scenic overlook, every nice dinner, every fountain or historical monument I kept thinking:

Is my hair okay?

Are my nails okay?

How’s my makeup?

Is this happening now?

Should I stand in a particular way to show I am ready to be proposed to?

I type these thoughts out now and laugh because of how neurotic I was being and how much I didn’t care in the end.

Now, not that I didn’t care. I obviously love my husband and did want things to be perfect but it turned out perfect had a totally different meaning once I was in that moment.

It was the last day of the trip and we had gone e-biking across the coast through small Italian towns. We stopped in this one town - Massa Lubrense, and some locals were gathered, celebrating what looked to be a birthday. I distinctly remember how happy everyone was sitting and laughing at this restaurant. This is what life is about, family, friends, and celebrating the small things. That is what I want, I thought.

We finished the tour less sober than when we started (thank you volcanic grown wine), and we walked down to a very late dinner in Marina Grande.

We sat outside watching the waves crash upon the jetty while enjoying our final Italian meal. We paid the bill and started heading back to our hotel. It was so late at this point I had pretty much chalked up that the proposal wasn’t happening.

As you walk back up from Marina Grande, the stairs curve and there is an outlook with the words “Veniva dal mare” forged in red metal sitting atop the stone wall with Vesuvius in the background. Translated to “it came from the sea”, there’s no consensus on exactly what “it” is and is simply up for personal interpretation.

We stopped for a moment here and I leaned against the stone wall looking out towards Naples trying to savor the last few moments of our trip when I heard him say, “I guess now’s a good time” in that classic nonchalant way he views life. I turned around to see him already down on one knee, ring box open. My mind screams, “this is happening!” and then I let everything else go. I just stood there listening, feeling, smiling, crying - all of it. I was so in the moment that I took “too long” to say yes (his words not mine). I just wanted to soak it all in and never forget it. Trying to capture as many mental pictures as I could like Jim and Pam from The Office do on their wedding day.

I said yes (obviously) and we hugged and cried and took a bunch of selfies because there wasn’t a photographer or anyone else around at that time of night to take a photo of us.

My hair was frizzy from the humidity.

I wasn’t in the outfit I had planned to get engaged in because I wore it the night before when we were going to a very fancy dinner (when I did actually think it was going to happen).

The press-on nails I had worn that I thought would look so cute with the ring had all fallen off so I was wearing some from a farmacia that I didn’t like that much.

But, guess what, none of that mattered.

I was engaged.

In Italy, to my best friend and we were saying yes to the rest of our lives.

I had finally pushed all the anxiety aside and allowed myself to live in the moment, in one perfect moment. There was this new part of me that finally felt a peacefulness I’d never felt before.

I chalked it up at the time to the happy high of being engaged or the fact I was on vacation. I mean, isn’t life always a little sunnier on vacation?

But as we returned back to our normal lives in Philadelphia something in me had really changed. I felt a determination to keep that peacefulness and try to harness it more. I know “determination” and “peacefulness” seem a little counterintuitive but knowing myself if I didn’t set an intention to try and live more presently and less anxiously it wasn’t going to happen.

Veniva dal mare…it came from the sea…on that night, overlooking the Bay of Naples staring at the lights of the city that held my part of my ancestry I felt it. To me, it meant catharsis. As I said ‘yes’ to our future, I was also in some way saying ‘yes’ to allowing myself to let go of all the standards and expectations I had set for myself and just live.

Live a beautiful life that celebrates the small things, creativity and saying yes to even my wildest dreams.

All because of the safety of one perfect moment in time.

As always thank you for taking the time to read. It has taken me over a year to put into words the memories and feelings of getting engaged and now being married because of how sacred I hold some of those memories.

This is entry 001 in my marriage series. I don’t have a catchy name yet but it will consist of practical advice for planning a wedding and also all of the feelings that go along with becoming a wife.

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