Weddings Abound
Great merciful crap, it's finally over. Give Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn medals and celebrate the stamina of the 30-40 something male actor. I only went to three weddings, all of which I was invited to and I don't care if my own brother gets married next month. I'm not fucking going. Don't misunderstand me. There's some small part of my head or my heart...or maybe my kidneys that falls for the notion of true love, finding your soul's counter point in another, or whatever, bu the rest of me is just tired of it.
To be fair, yes, I am just tired in general. I've been to three weddings in the last two months and the closest one was in Friday Harbor. For those of you who don't know that's about five hours in the car and at least two, maybe three, for the ferry ride. I'm...you know, it'd be a lie to say I'm travelled out even. It's not that. I actually love being on the road. It's being in the same place for too long that seems to be getting to me these days. But that has nothing to do with weddings or exhaustion.
The first wedding was near the height of informal, but sweet and fun like none I'd been to before ever were. The second was far more formal, but hardly a debutante ball. I was in a terrible mood for that one. Something about realizing it'd never be me up at the alter and that it would be my own doing. After all, in this country if you have a couple of thousand dollars, you can get married in a week or two if that's really what turns you on. Obviously, marriage is not the penultimate of my goals in this life. Probably not even going out on a limb to say it ranks somewhere between joining the Century club and running three miles...oh, right, I can do that one already.
This is the outlook I found myself in at the third wedding. That's right, a liar. I wish I could find what Diana and Chad seem to have found in each other. I wish I believed it was out there for me, or that if it is I'd be able to support it when it found me, or I found it. But the reality of it is I won't. I won't let it in, and I won't let it get that close. (Read the song lyrics in the background on my profile page). Don't start making sad eyes at what you're reading. It's just the way of things. It's not a horrible and dramatic travesty like self-sacrificial death to save life or donating a kidney to save a relative only to have them die in surgery. It's a path I've chosen to walk. Who knows I may even gain the faith/naivette to divert myself from it one day. Lord knows I'm being given plenty of examples to follow these days. The ceremonies change from personality to family net worth, but that look...the gleam in the eyes of a newly married couple. That shining smile and radiant glow just exuding happiness and all things right with the world. It's always the same. I've been to seven weddings now, five in the last two years...or is it six? But they've all had that look. I even saw it in the video of a coke snorting Elvis marrying a college friend to her husband in Vegas. A lack of convention is hardly a cage for such feelings.
It was nice to be even a small part of this most recent union. I've never been so much as an usher (or was I for my Uncle's? I was fifteen). Certainly never a groomsman and I doubt I'll be a best man till my brother gets married, and unlikely ever again after that. Operating the soundboard probably doesn't seem like much to you, but it was a big deal to me. If I fucked that up feedback assails the wedding party, or the minister powers on in hushed whispers, or the bride enters in hushed silence rather than to the moderately cheesy, but still romantic melodies of the Braveheart soundtrack (thank you and fuck you Mel Gibson). It's a special thing to be trusted with a piece of someone elses big day. I appreciated it and it's the most useful I've felt in a while.
Though I think it crystalized the way I see myself these days. I've helped a lot of people in my time, short as it's been. Nothing tremendous or major. I haven't saved any lives or altered the course of history. I guess time will tell on that one. I am a supporting character. I am the stage hand. I grease the wheels, build the sets, direct the players, adjust the microphones and set the music. I am the DJ, not the dancer. I am not the main character. I can see being a small, but crucial piece of the machine that is this or that person's wedding, but never the lynch-pin of my own.
What's strange is that no matter how lonely I get, I kind of prefer it that way.
To be fair, yes, I am just tired in general. I've been to three weddings in the last two months and the closest one was in Friday Harbor. For those of you who don't know that's about five hours in the car and at least two, maybe three, for the ferry ride. I'm...you know, it'd be a lie to say I'm travelled out even. It's not that. I actually love being on the road. It's being in the same place for too long that seems to be getting to me these days. But that has nothing to do with weddings or exhaustion.
The first wedding was near the height of informal, but sweet and fun like none I'd been to before ever were. The second was far more formal, but hardly a debutante ball. I was in a terrible mood for that one. Something about realizing it'd never be me up at the alter and that it would be my own doing. After all, in this country if you have a couple of thousand dollars, you can get married in a week or two if that's really what turns you on. Obviously, marriage is not the penultimate of my goals in this life. Probably not even going out on a limb to say it ranks somewhere between joining the Century club and running three miles...oh, right, I can do that one already.
This is the outlook I found myself in at the third wedding. That's right, a liar. I wish I could find what Diana and Chad seem to have found in each other. I wish I believed it was out there for me, or that if it is I'd be able to support it when it found me, or I found it. But the reality of it is I won't. I won't let it in, and I won't let it get that close. (Read the song lyrics in the background on my profile page). Don't start making sad eyes at what you're reading. It's just the way of things. It's not a horrible and dramatic travesty like self-sacrificial death to save life or donating a kidney to save a relative only to have them die in surgery. It's a path I've chosen to walk. Who knows I may even gain the faith/naivette to divert myself from it one day. Lord knows I'm being given plenty of examples to follow these days. The ceremonies change from personality to family net worth, but that look...the gleam in the eyes of a newly married couple. That shining smile and radiant glow just exuding happiness and all things right with the world. It's always the same. I've been to seven weddings now, five in the last two years...or is it six? But they've all had that look. I even saw it in the video of a coke snorting Elvis marrying a college friend to her husband in Vegas. A lack of convention is hardly a cage for such feelings.
It was nice to be even a small part of this most recent union. I've never been so much as an usher (or was I for my Uncle's? I was fifteen). Certainly never a groomsman and I doubt I'll be a best man till my brother gets married, and unlikely ever again after that. Operating the soundboard probably doesn't seem like much to you, but it was a big deal to me. If I fucked that up feedback assails the wedding party, or the minister powers on in hushed whispers, or the bride enters in hushed silence rather than to the moderately cheesy, but still romantic melodies of the Braveheart soundtrack (thank you and fuck you Mel Gibson). It's a special thing to be trusted with a piece of someone elses big day. I appreciated it and it's the most useful I've felt in a while.
Though I think it crystalized the way I see myself these days. I've helped a lot of people in my time, short as it's been. Nothing tremendous or major. I haven't saved any lives or altered the course of history. I guess time will tell on that one. I am a supporting character. I am the stage hand. I grease the wheels, build the sets, direct the players, adjust the microphones and set the music. I am the DJ, not the dancer. I am not the main character. I can see being a small, but crucial piece of the machine that is this or that person's wedding, but never the lynch-pin of my own.
What's strange is that no matter how lonely I get, I kind of prefer it that way.