Sitting quietly and listening to two dear friends take their vows, I think about being single and all it does and doesn't entail. I suspect I'm not the only one entertaining such thoughts.
It's been years since I've been to a wedding and my camera sits ready and willing but idle while my friend Mary Catherine buzzes around the room like a cicada, angling, snapping, capturing moments. I've decided to be a guest this time, to sit back and watch without the shield of my old Nikon. It's more difficult than you might think and after the meal but before all the traditional festivities, I slip out. It was a lovely event but I've had enough of the crowd and the chatter. After the vows are exchanged, the rest is just decoration and icing and without my camera, my shy side surfaces and coaxes me home. The last thing I hear is a musician friend singing the tale end of a lyric about no more lonely nights or solitary breakfasts. Thinking about the five cats and two dogs waiting for me, I smile. What I'd give for a lonely night or a solitary breakfast.
When, at the ripe old age of 46, I found myself alone after being married for my entire adult life, I was initially torn between anxiety and relief. I consoled myself with one not terribly serious relationship and two garden variety flings before coming to terms with my new lifestyle. Two decades later, the very thought of a third marriage gives me the chills. My marriages didn't fail, I sometimes think, I did. It strikes me that not all of us are meant for married life, that destiny manages to deliver us the lives we're due, not the ones we imagine we should want or have. Karmic forces work slowly and discreetly. They give us time to become accustomed to our fates. And they do not concern themselves with our individual views of fairness. I'm pretty sure that what goes around actually does come around but it may not be in this lifetime.
Meanwhile there's music and dancing, wedding bouquets to be thrown and commitments to be celebrated. I feel a twinge of envy as I leave, but just a twinge.
I'm over it by the time I drive away.
When, at the ripe old age of 46, I found myself alone after being married for my entire adult life, I was initially torn between anxiety and relief. I consoled myself with one not terribly serious relationship and two garden variety flings before coming to terms with my new lifestyle. Two decades later, the very thought of a third marriage gives me the chills. My marriages didn't fail, I sometimes think, I did. It strikes me that not all of us are meant for married life, that destiny manages to deliver us the lives we're due, not the ones we imagine we should want or have. Karmic forces work slowly and discreetly. They give us time to become accustomed to our fates. And they do not concern themselves with our individual views of fairness. I'm pretty sure that what goes around actually does come around but it may not be in this lifetime.
Meanwhile there's music and dancing, wedding bouquets to be thrown and commitments to be celebrated. I feel a twinge of envy as I leave, but just a twinge.
I'm over it by the time I drive away.
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