Weddings are hard, y’all.
In the last 2 weeks I have been to two. The weddings were beautiful and perfect for them. I considered not going to the first one. At the time I couldn’t have said why, just that I didn’t feel like going. I assumed it was my introvert self pulling its usual “I don’t want to get ready because going out is hard” so I knew that I would regret not being there, and that once I got there I would enjoy it. This was true.
What I didn’t expect was for the wedding to be hard. For it to pull on strings that I wasn’t prepared for it to pull on. I made it through the first one and I didn’t think twice about going to the next one. It was still hard, but I was prepared and I took the opportunity to knowingly sit with my grief.
Here’s what I learned makes weddings hard, right now.
It’s not that he should have been there with me. John wouldn’t have accompanied me, at least not and liked it. Formal gatherings weren’t his thing… 😉 It’s not that I’ll never get to have a wedding with him either. Our hearts made the promise long ago. No ceremony could have made the promise any more concrete. Some of you will disagree with me. That’s okay.
It’s that I don’t get the years that come after. The really hard ones. The ones where you grow more than you can ever imagine, and you do it together. Where you’re in each other’s space all the time. Where you get to make all the big decisions together, and the little ones too. Weddings are a reminder that I don’t get to have it all forever, the beauty and the ugly, with John.
We had some hard times, really hard times. And we both grew a lot. We grew separately though. We found our individual selves and we came back to each other. Each time with a deeper understanding of self, a deeper love to give. But we didn’t have the chance to truly grow together like you do in marriage.
I’m not bitter. I have the deepest love to give now. I’m not stuck in the past either. Or holding onto what could have been. This is real life, right now.
This is my reality.
And weddings are hard.
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