Weekend Journal

Sunday morning, I gulped down my third cup of coffee trying to get my head together. I had been up late the night before preparing for Monday’s classes, and then went to bed without my wind down time in front of the tube. Whenever I go straight from the computer to bed, it usually takes me an hour to fall asleep. I probably dropped off at around 2 am, and then a little boy had an accident a few hours later. So, I caked on the under eye concealer as I got dressed for Melissa’s wedding.

My attitudes about weddings have changed over the years.

When I first started attending weddings some time after college, I hated them. I was too cool for those rituals and symbols of paternalism and repression. Why would people do such a thing? I hated the proper dresses and pointed heels. I hated the hokey music and the performance of the wedding couple. I thought that I would get married in a black dress in city hall. I was probably not the best wedding guest during those early years. Lots of eye rolling and snickering.

Ten years ago, the summer that we got married, was probably the peak of weddings amongst my buddies. By that time, I had gotten past the grouchy wedding guest phase. Weddings meant eating good food and getting sloshed with your friends. I had grown to like dancing to Van Morrison and the Sisters Sledge in pointy shoes and big hair. By this time, I was a very, um, visable wedding guest, and I’m afraid to think of how many wedding videos caught me on the dance floor.

I’m a little more restrained at weddings than I used to be. I still enjoy the good food. Quite an excellent cocktail hour at yesterday’s wedding. Little mushroom quiches and fried dumplings. But I’m actually starting to enjoy the symbolism. Melissa’s wedding was about the second chance at life and love for two people who had faced tragedies in the past. Oh, I was a sobby mess.

I’m also growing to enjoy the predictability of a wedding. The sameness. The weddings stay the same, as we guests grow older. Yesterday, I enjoyed the hora, the the toasts, the first dance, the flowers in the bathroom, the ribbons in the flower girls’ hair, the salad course, the guest cards, the table of old people, the colors of the trees on the banks of the Hudson River, the gold chairs, the hupah, the goodie bag.

It was a very nice day. Best of luck to Melissa and David.