I will admit that I have, for of my adult years, been a terror for cancellations. It’s easy to blame mental health issues – the social anxiety that grew acute during the noughties, but toned down slightly as I got to grips with my depression and started regular therapy – but a lot of the time I think there’s just a kind of dissonance between who I am and who I want to be.
Who I am? A slightly introverted woman in her late thirties who loves the company of others – constant chats were one of my favourite parts of working as a personal trainer, after all – but hates the pressure to “have fun!” that comes with carefully planned nights out, hen parties and expensive weekends away.
Who I want to be? A slightly extroverted woman in her early thirties who wants nothing more than to follow her bliss, live with an open heart and make decisions with a devil-may-care spontaneity that is the admiration and envy of all of her friends. (I’d also quite like to be universally well-liked, have an excellent sense of humour that does not fail me at moments of slagging by my older sister and be known for doling out great, timely and, though unsolicited, incredibly helpful advice.)
As a result, I am never particularly disappointed when I have to cancel a social engagement. There have been a few exceptions: gigs I missed, birthday parties I didn’t get to go to, a friend’s wedding that didn’t make it due to the giant cosmic joke 2020 played on us all.
But, by and large, I am relieved when I no longer have to worry about doing my makeup and zipping up a dress that barely fits me and making small talk with people I don’t know all that well, while waiting for the chance to speak to those I do.
This revelation may shock you, but: it’s different when the occasion is your own.
Brandin and I got married in the spring of 2021, barely three months after he proposed, on New Year’s Eve, down on one knee in our kitchen as I attempted to finish a floral jigsaw puzzle given to me by a friend.
We hadn’t planned on having as speedy a wedding as this, but the universe has a funny way of making those decisions for you. A few weeks after our engagement, I got pregnant, and in order to switch from my health insurance, which did not offer any maternity benefits, to Brandin’s (which did), we needed to be married. Ergo: we were married.
“We’ll have a party during the summer, when Covid’s over,” we thought. The vaccine was, by then, on the horizon, and so the idea that Covid would, indeed, be “over” at some point didn’t seem entirely out of the question.
Of course, Covid will never be over – and without the “perfect date” in mind, we decided, last-minute, to plan a garden party at my sister’s, to celebrate our marriage while my parents are visiting.
We booked a food truck – by Junk Ditch, one of our favourite Fort Wayne restaurants; we paid the deposit on a bouncy castle, for the kids; we lined up a mobile bartender and the same photographer who worked wonders at my baby shower; bought six wooden picnic tables from Lowe’s (which I sanded and waterproofed, a true labour of love); power washed the patio tiles and a friend even went to Costco to complete our drinks order, for gin fizzes and bellinis and enough wine to see us through the evening.
And then, a disaster with which we are all too familiar: a Covid outbreak at a gathering my sister was at. A positive test for a friend, then another. Bea feels unwell – a sore throat, a cough, chills – but is testing negative.
At first, we’re not sure what to do about the party. Do we play it safe and cancel, losing our deposits and disappointing our guests (and ourselves) and risk not being able to rebook providers for this year? Or do we go ahead, throw (Covid) caution to the wind like the rest of America (at least, that’s how it feels) and hope we don’t end up hosting a super-spreader event and causing harm to the few Fort Wayne friends I have?
I email the food truck – aversion to phone calls being another of my fun personality traits – and ask what happens if we need to reschedule. “We just need to know by Thursday,” they tell me, and list their other available dates. There’s one in July, two weeks away and the week before my parents go back to Ireland.
I call the bouncy castle providers, whose terms and conditions state that cancellations must be made three weeks ahead of the scheduled event date. “Oh, because it’s Covid we can reschedule, that’s fine,” I’m told.
In the end, we manage to reschedule everything – photographer, bartender, bouncy castle, food truck, flowers – for two weeks later. My sister, still testing negative but with a cough and a sore throat, apologises. “I honestly don’t mind!” I tell her. And I don’t.
But I did expect to feel a little more relieved than I did – after all, a cancellation usually means ordering Indian and watching TV on the couch, instead of whatever it was I was meant to do.
This time, I feel a slight pang of disappointment. As Saturday morning rolls in, I start to think about what I would be doing (aside from sweating profusely) at each moment. I’d be getting my nails done right about now, I think as, instead, I make waffles for my parents and we eat them with the dregs of the maple syrup. We’re out of bacon.
By late afternoon, though, the relief has started to peek through. Despite a weather forecast that promised a day of 30-odd degree weather with intermittent clouds, it is in the mid-twenties but incredibly humid. At 4pm – people would be arriving right about now – the heavens open and it rains big, lukewarm raindrops down on my head as I begin to run back from the postbox across the road.
When, at 7pm, I hear claps of thunder roll in across the flat Indiana landscape, I think, ah, it’s just as well.
Right now, Accuweather tells me that our new date is a clear day. 0% chance of rain. 30 degrees and sunny. I know I can’t rely on these numbers, but still, I hope. Maybe this cancellation happened for a reason.
Just FYI: even though the spread of Covid through my friends and family affected me disproportionately, I obviously was – and am – most concerned for them. I just felt like nobody needs another thinkpiece about that.
To Cancel is Human; to Postpone, Divine