A news junkie confesses to watching the royal wedding

In the weeks leading up to today's royal wedding, none of the hooplah really seemed to penetrate my consciousness. I scoffed at the excess, disdained the nonstop blather -- until I heard my best friend, Karen, and her daughters talking about their plans to wake up in the middle of the night to watch it live on TV.

Their excited chatter took me back to another royal wedding, 30 years ago, that I got up in the middle of the night to watch -- along with more than 750 million other people -- when I was just an eighth-grader growing up in Fresno.

I remember another night spent watching the news, not such a happy occasion. By this time, Aug. 31, 1997, I was working as a journalist. Like so many others, I watched in horror as "Britain's rose" died in a car crash in a Paris tunnel after being pursued by aggressive paparazzi.

Today's wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton isn't the most significant news happening in the world today. I don't believe that it warrants the coverage that it's getting. But not all news must focus on the negative things happening in the world. There is so much of that as to overwhelm our psyches, sometimes it's ok to just savor a happy moment, especially if it's something that we can share with loved ones in our own lives.

Shared moments in history, happy and tragic, become part of the fabric of our memory. In my lifetime, besides the royal landmarks, other significant news events include the night John Lennon was shot, the night the Berlin Wall came down, and maybe the biggest of all, Sept. 11, 2001.

Talking about the wedding at home, I found that my oldest daughter Alyssa was also interested in watching today's royal nuptials. So we mapped out our plan, recording the news coverage on DVR so we could get up early before school and work and watch the highlights together over coffee (though I happen to be watching the proceedings live at the moment as I can't sleep).

A lot has happened in our world, and in my world, since Princess Diana married Prince Charles in 1981. There are no fairy tales. Not even beautiful princesses get "happily ever after."

But love is real. And the passion I have for watching news unfold and turn into history is something that I am pleased to share with those I love the most at this point in my life - my children. It may not be their passion, but it's a memory we are making that I hope they may look back fondly on 30 years from now.