Weddings and how they make one feel/reflect

Les voila, mes chaussures... Not my ideal choice, a bit too casual for a wedding maybe, and I was worried I wouldn't be able to dance in shoes that high. But I did like the four inchness of them and the way they disappeared on my feat so that my cute little strapless remained the main focus of my ensemble. And, thank goodness, I was indeed able to dance in them.

My dress (yes, that's teeny weenie me in four inch heels), I'm the one not dressed as a bride...

But I confess I didn't give as much thought to the wedding of my best childhood friend as I should have. I missed her bridal shower. I didn't start my dress and shoe search until days before the wedding. I even forgot to RSVP. The thing is, though we live only miles apart, we inhabit different circles. So while she was preparing for her wedding and living in the same place and going to the same job she's had for years and years I was going wherever the wind blew me, preparing for art exhibits, helping my sister with her 5 kids because her husband was in Afghanistan, looking for somewhere to take root.

So, watching she and her father walk down the aisle, I was unprepared for the intense emotions I began to feel and the tears I began to discreetly shed. What's this? Am I crying? Why am I crying? Why would I cry now, I wondered, when I didn't cry at my sister's wedding. Or at any of the weddings of my innumerable cousins. Moreover, she's been living with her new husband some five years now. What's the big deal? This is just a formality, a symbolic gesture.

Yes, but symbolic gestures are a big deal. They are potent, jam packed little concentrations of meaning. And even if one hasn't consciously considered it, some part of us has been busily calculating a specific meaning all our own.

Thus, watching my best childhood friend getting married, I began to cry (discreetly) and didn't stop crying until I got home late that night because:

1. I'm a sucker for romantic movies and Jane Austen novels and, through our many hours long conversations when she first started dating her husband to be, I witnessed her falling in love with this seemingly too good to be true person, this Darcy mixed in with Colonel Brandon, willing and hoping alongside her that this romance would endure and flourish especially after the messy break up she'd recently experienced. And here at long, long last was the happy conclusion to their courtship story, proof that true love and fairy tales do come true, a garden wedding in the gorgeous, green California hills, a conclusion so worth waiting for I cried.

2. We met when we were little kids, when I was best friends with someone else at the time, someone who refused to make friends with the new girl because no one else, but me, would either. And for a few strange weeks I found myself being fought over by two little girls, one popular, the other unfairly excluded and teased, until I chose the right one. The one who knew how to make a sad child laugh and how to bring a shy girl out of herself by tempting her into childish adventures. One who would share her lunch when my father (who was always either drunk or hungover) would forget to pack me anything or worried if he ever got more than verbally abusive when it didn't occur to anyone else in my big huge family to worry about me. We were each other's true friend, sister and advocate when we needed one most, when our real sisters pretended not to know us, and no matter how life takes us in different directions there is a bond between us that cannot be broken. And watching my soul sister and life long friend get married made me so happy I cried.
3. When my sister got married I was in my early twenties. I could wait. And then, one experience after another, some disappointing, some heartbreaking, some a relief to get away from, at some point I began to wonder if my turn hadn't come about yet because I might have been irrevocably warped by the denial of love in my earliest years. I did have the tendency to choose the wrong man who would then push me away. Or I would push the right man away because, no matter how wonderful he actually was, I still feared he was just like my dad. I also feared I was unlovable. But not anymore. Now I feel openhearted, whole. I feel ready. I feel like should another wonderful possibility walk into my life today I have the self assurance and courage it takes to dive in, eyes wide open. But at yet another person's wedding, someone who grew up with good, loving parents, I could not help but wonder, will I miss this experience because my father was an a--hole and my mother didn't know how to stand up for herself? God how unfair that would be. And so I cried.

4. I was not one of the bridal party. And though our differing schedules and priorities would have made it impracticable, the fact that I was sitting down witnessing her marriage instead of taking an active part in it only served to show the space that has grown between us. I wish she lived close enough to be part of my women's circle. She would have told the woman I consider difficult off a long time ago. I did once, oh hell yes I did, but it got me nowhere. She would have just chased the bitch off for good, niceties be damned. I miss my childhood friend. And so I cried.