April 19, 2008

Saturday musings...mostly on weddings

What with my low thryroid and often staying up late and such I confess I'm rarely out of bed by 7-8 in the morning, but what with my stuffy head getting me up at unusual hours I get to see a very golden morning light streaming across the river and through the trees. You can't actually see the river from my patio in the springtime, but there's a lovely mist coming up the banks which, having caught the rising sun, looks like a veritable blanket of sunbeams. It's all yellows and greens and misty greys out there, and it's very lovely. Makes me wish I'd gotten out of bed when I first woke up. You know how it is though when you have a cold that wakes you up. First you toss and turn a bit, then you lie there and debate getting up, then you drift off for about 5mins, then you toss and turn some more, stare at your adorable sleeping husband, and finally decide that if you're going to be awake you might as well go into the living room. So here I am. I rather wish I was getting ready to help with Katy's wedding reception. Her mom helped us out quite a bit with our wedding, and when I heard Katy was getting married I was so eager to help her out in return. Unfortunately I got sick Monday night, and instead of helping out I'm blowing my nose and blogging. Sick people aren't exactly encouraged to sneeze all over the wedding feast. I'm feeling somewhat better at least today. Maybe I can get through the wedding without looking like a flu case. I still wanted to help out though...I couldn't even go yesterday and help set up like I wanted to.

It's funny to think about another young woman getting up and getting to the church early and trying to get her hair done and her dress just right before they're supposed to shoot pictures. Then waiting in the bride's room for what seems like years until you finally get to go the foyer and wait another age before you get to walk down the aisle to the one man in the whole world. I will add that at that point amnesia pretty much sets in. I didn't hear hardly a single note of the music I'd picked and which the organist had specifically learned/arranged for me. One of the elders of my church gave me away, and now he has a tiny daughter of his own. Sort of a dress rehearsal for the real thing only 20 odd years early. We must have looked and odd couple. Waiting at the church for long made me tend towards the hyper while Allen was just the opposite and tended towards solemn. Still, it's interesting to think that so many memories just like mine and yet not all like mine being made today by a young woman going through many of the same motions I did over a year and a half ago. I guess the thing that started me thinking about it was waking up and looking over at Allen and thinking about Katy waking up alone today but not waking up alone tomorrow. It's one of those weird mysteries of marriage. And you know. It just feels different. Riding in the car to Atlanta after the wedding. It was just Allen and I riding in the car like we had so many times before, but it was like nothing I had ever done before. I knew the Allen I'd dated. I wasn't really sure I knew this oddly silent man I'd just married. In a weird way it would have been a relief to forget we were married and just talk or be silent together easily as we had so often before. It was ok by the next morning though. Marriage seemed a bit more normal after we woke up, and it was fun to count the hours. Of course it felt like it stuck out all over us that we were newly-weds. The jam-packed, bedaubed car may have had something to do with that though. There wasn't hardly a spare inch anywhere in that car. What with packing for the honeymoon and all the last minute stuff that car was a sight to send valets running for the parking garage. It's funny. A wedding is one of those things where you just have to jump in wherever you are. If you're parents are driving you nuts (or breaking your heart). If you're stressed. If you're scared of sex. You just have to jump in there where you are and start paddling. It's easy for me to have regrets about things. I could have been a little more hands on in some parts. I wish things with my parents had gone differently. I wish I'd had a better foundation for approaching sex. But...I didn't. And what matters now? We're married, and I have grown more than I ever thought possible. I'm starting to learn that you really do have to start with what you're given and go from there. We all have our own starting places that really have very little do with how good we are or what we earned or what we did or didn't do and everything to do with the places in which God has put us. It's super easy to have regrets, but it's not actually all that much fun. It's more fun to like the life you live than to want to be living someone else's.

6 comments:

susan said...

You're thoughts on marriage are really quite beautiful. That "driving away" feeling is frightening, isn't it? I wish I had known that.


susan (smith)

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Elisa M said...

Great post

Anonymous said...

Can you take synthroid for your thyroid problem? It really straightened me out.

Natalie said...

I'd have to get my numbers run again, but I'd rather deal with my thyroid nutritionally. I've already seen my energy levels and mood swings getting a lot better.