weddings; suddenly they're all the rage, like wearing thick belts over your t-shirt (with shoulder pads) or sweaters over black leggings and pixie boots. a divorced friend confirmed that it is all about the Party, Presents, and Pouffy dress. registering at target, or williams sonoma (if you have doctors and lawyers on the guest list), for china, towels, and sheets you will never use. same band, sometimes the same church, same reception venue, same guests. i heard that the more you spend on a wedding, the more likely it will end in divorce- except of course "tomkat", their love is pure and blessed by science (fiction).
as little girls, we are fed on a steady diet of cinderella and her fairyland cohorts. the lesson being that if you wait long enough, with a dash of martyred suffering thrown in (this century's equivalent of the wicked stepfamily would be enduring the endless weddings and eyebrows raised in your naked finger's direction), and voila! prince charming to rescue and save you from further epilleptic eyebrows. i have a friend who is in her mid to late 20's that cannot be fully happy when one of her peer's makes "the announcement", a little piece of her withers as it is a reminder that although she has planned her career, her car, her southern living style decorated house, she cannot plan the "husband", short of moving to india for an arranged one, and she did in fact date an indian chap who had to break up with her because his parents had found him a wife. this same friend just broke off a relationship after 6 months because "it wasn't going anywhere", by anywhere she meant up the aisle. while i am not advocating for 6 years of serial monogamy, her actions do seem a little extreme. despite her antidisestablishmentarianism (i cant believe i managed to work that word into a sentence!), i just found out that my former "pothead roomate" is now wed and with child ..2. granted she was unsure if the father of ..1 was her gay best friend or not.
i realized that out of the 7 fedorowicz grandchildren, it is just me (the oldest) and "baby james" (the youngest) who have yet to say their vows. at 31 years old my babcia was already a mother 3 times over (i can barely keep a cactus alive!). if i sound a bit defensive, it's probably because i am, my ovaries are withering along with my cactus. my ex's mother thinks i have a "fear of comittment", but perhaps this is her own coping mechanism for my "rejecting" her son after 2 years. i have no excuse, my parents are happily telling/ignoring each other what to do. my brother is married and mortgaged. perhaps it's not about being "comittment phobic", as much as we enjoy bandying around the term. who says we have to meet "the one" in our first quarter century on earth? a girl i went to school with in saudi said that even if you met and married your "the one" at 40 (barring any plane crashes, nuclear war, or terminal illness) and you live until 80, that's still 40 years with one person. that's a long time to nag about not leaving the seat up.
my original "plan", was based on having grown up in eastern cultures, where females went to school to kill time until they were married off. then in the manner of the expat housewife; have babies, play bridge, and check on the housekeeper while hubby dearest is at work. when i realized that i had to pick a course of study at university, and not an MRS degree, i decided that i never wanted there to be any question that i married for (legal) or any other kind of status.
the truth is, none of us really want to be alone. ultimately we all want a witness; to our existence. someone to elbow in the artificial hip and ask "do you remember when...?" whether it's a young marriage, or a rushed, last desperate sprint to the altar on our zimmer frames because "everyone else is doing it"- when did marriage become like sneaking a cigarette behind the bike shed after school?
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