On Weddings

Originally written 2007-12-20.

The last wedding I attended was Jeff and Becky's. Aside from the fact they OK'd a totally dry reception, it was a really nice event start to finish, and I was happy to finally meet their families. They'd picked a really gorgeous spot for their outdoor ceremony on the edge of a quaint little pond in Pennsylvania under the shade of an old tree that looked perfectly suited to have an old canoe turned upside down underneath its boughs. The sky was blue and it was just a little hot at mid-day in the end of September, the kind of weather where the light sheen of sweat just starting to form on your forehead makes you feel alive, and the cool barely-there breeze of sweet summertime air that ebbs and flows through the tree branches and over your skin makes you think that there is a greater purpose to this world and that maybe, just maybe, somebody up there likes you.

I hated every minute of it.

Oh, it's not because I didn't like Jeff or Becky, or because I didn't want to be in the wedding party and wear a bitchin' tuxedo outside under a noonday sun, or because I had some sort of moral opposition to the Chicken Dance. No, I hated being there because at the time, I'd been freshly single for just barely under a month from a girl who broke my heart. I was still drinking heavily and in the middle of sloppily organizing my great venture westward to rest in the loving bosom of my best friend and his couch, which he has kept on permanent reservation for me for years. Oh, and did I mention that the aforementioned heartbreaker was in the wedding party as well?

Yes, that's an infrequently considered side effect of long-term relationships. When your friends tie the knot, they plan on the two of you still being together in six, eight, or twelve months. So the two of us had signed up for a couple of our friends' weddings, thinking that it would be no trouble at all for us to be in the wedding party together, march up and down aisles arm-in-arm, and do all sorts of various administrative things together for the bridge and groom.

I mean, c'mon. We're a stable and happy, couple, right? It's not as if when The Big Day rolls around, having the two of us in the same room together is going to be like an instant blast of arctic wind gusting down to put a thick layer of frost on everything in sight.

So plans were forged months in advance, taking into consideration what was at the time the very safe assumption that I and my former cohabitating significant other would not be mortal enemies who would just as much tumble over Reichenbach Falls together as look at one another. As an exercise in garmonbozia as much as it was keeping a promise that I made to my friends, I went through with the wedding even though part of me would much rather have been back in Cleveland trying to see if I could keep down the results of pouring vodka over breakfast cereal. I think they knew that, and it was probably visible on my face at least a few times, but I knew they understood and appreciated my sacrifice for them, and they were kind enough to not make a big deal of it when I lugged a huge cardboard box full of booze into the reception hall and placed it under the bridal party's dining table.

I suppose that the biggest flaw in attending a wedding with your ex is that the entire ceremony is largely built around having some kind of designated official stand around and wax on and on about togetherness, and love, and loving togetherness, and the bonds that two people share, and loving sharing, and sharing togetherness with love.

I can't even stomach that shit on Valentine's Day when I'm with somebody, so it's clearly more than I can bear to hear it while still raw and bleeding and standing just a few feet away from somebody who has pretty much stabbed me in the back with respect to sharing, and togetherness, and love.

It was, I think, a learning experience, mixed with a pair of rented Oxfords and white folding chairs for eighty. I don't regret it, and I certainly don't mind seeing friends off to start a life of their own together. It meant a lot to them that I be there, and that, in turn, meant a lot to me. Mostly though I think back on what an idiot I was to believe I could pretend to be normal, happy, and healthy while sharing (There's that word again!) oxygen with a backstabber who was already so very much at the front of my thoughts.

Time, they say, heals all wounds. And they also say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Both of these things are absolute lies. Time heals nothing; our wounds are salved and scabbed over only as bad memories that cease to grow, and eventually fade as a side-effect of the hours passing, not because of it. Forgetfulness is what heals the wounds: lotus-eating. It's why I drank so heavily after I found out that this dear, sweet girl I thought I was living with was being nauseatingly intimate with some adulterous douchebag from the University of Iowa.

As a fan of old horror movies, I am readily aware of the filming technique that causes the person in the foreground to draw closer to the camera while the background draws away from it in a scene of shocking revelation. It's a staple of the genre. I know now how that feels, to experience that moment in real life. At that time, my best friend (owner of the aforementioned couch) was needling me on a daily basis to buy a ring for this girl, and I had saved up quite a fund to do so. Now, here I was, watching in disbelief late one night as the person for whom that ring fund was intended sat on the other side of the room and typed on and on about how they just couldn't possibly keep doing what they'd been doing, but they just couldn't bear to stop seeing each other and oh, my wife is so understanding about this whole thing even though I left out the hot hot cybersex angle entirely when telling her how much we mean to each other....

As you can probably guess, I didn't sleep that night. I didn't sleep so well the following night, either, but at least then, by the time sleep came to me, I was inebriated and exhausted from having ranted and raved at the girl and before packing an overnight bag so that I, the one who wasn't cheating on anybody, could spend the night with a good friend and trusted coworker who sympathetically offered me his ear, some beer, Guitar Hero, and the bed in his guest bedroom.

I haven't slept well since. That was in late August.

I've always had problems getting to sleep, but that life-long problem of tossing and turning for an hour or two every night would be like heaven to have back compared to what I've gone through after the breakup. I stopped paying attention to whether it was day or night. I'd turned in my two weeks' notice at work and in order to keep me they gave me that time off in personal days, vacation, and a couple unpaid days so I could work things out at home and come back at the end of it to see if I still wanted to leave the company. The copious amount of free time was a trade-off. I was totally useless at doing my job in the condition I was in, so I had ample free time to focus on being in that condition. With nowhere to be and nothing to do, I was free to spend days at a time uncontrollably swinging back and forth between wishing I were dead and hoping that this was all either a bad dream or a worse joke.

My memories of that time are sketchy, but I'm fairly certain I gave the ex-girlfriend an ultimatum to get her shit out of my home, followed by a rapid canceling of an over-extended apartment lease and the purchase of a one-way plane ticket for Yours Truly. It's hazy, but I recall a conversation in the later stages of the breakup, when we still had to see each other regularly for the exchange of personal property, wherein she promised to send me cookies once I'd reached my final destination.

Cookies. By mail.

This isn't summer camp we're talking about, darling. I'm leaving the only time zone I've ever known because you've routinely betrayed me for as long as we've been together. I don't want your fucking cookies, and more importantly, sending me care packages would kind of negate the point of that whole "our relationship is over and I don't want to see you again" thing.

I specifically requested no communication from her for a minimum of two months. That deadline has come and gone, and I'm happy to say there have been no attempts to contact me. One would think that the old adage about absence and fondness might apply here, but no. As I previously mentioned, that's a lie, but I guess grandmothers are less enthused to cross-stitch that little nugget of wisdom onto a pillowcase when they have to add the addendum "but only as long as you remain unaware that your significant other has been systematically boning all her bestest drinking buddies throughout your entire relationship." Grandmas are so prudish sometimes.

Either that or having to pull a needle and thread through all those words just makes their bony little arthritic fingers cramp up like a vise.

So those passing hours? They've been flying by. As I write this, Jeff and Becky are going to have their 3-month-iversary in a day or two. And now, I have the task of planning my return trip east to attend another wedding early next year. Different friends, same arrangement. Me on the groom's side, her on the bride's. Tickets are purchased, rooms reserved. Am I looking forward to it?

What do you think?

I think I'm done. I'm out. I'm cashing in my chips and walking away from the table. I'll see these two fine folks down the aisle together and then it's goodnight Irene. No more weddings. I'm sure I still have plenty of friends who are out there finding love and looking for knots to tie.

Tie them yourself, guys. I don't want to be involved. I might find the strength to go to another wedding sometime, but I'm absolutely fucking certain that I won't be participating in one again.