It has been the season of weddings, and I seem to have spent several Saturdays in a row attending one after another. Last Saturday as I sat in my pre-appointed seat with an excellent view of the bridal couple I had reason to give thought to the girls that had gone before, the ones not decked out in bridal finery this day, the ones that didn’t win the proposal of this groom. In my minds eye I imagined these girls, the ones that would be drinking themselves to the point of smeared mascara, the ones in their pajamas watching a movie with tea and silent sympathy from a best friend. The girls that didn’t get their true love and the dream wedding. I wonder if they have spent the wedding days thinking of what might have been, of wondering where they went wrong, what they could have said or done differently.. was there a moment that all was lost? Or was it eroded over time?
My mind turned to the grooms and their choices of bride. It would seem that there are those that choose stepford style wives, others choose life partners and the foolish ones select the would be playboy bunny. I watch the events unfold with a weary cynicism stuck in the generation between the older folk that have marriages that have withstood trial and tribulation and the dewy eyed younger people.
I watch a couple some years married, a man who has boxed above his weight, the trophy wife who has been wooed by his success and finance more than by the absence of good looks wit and charm. I wonder how long she will be content with status and power by proxy or if she will revert to type, and the pull of the once captain of the rugby team will be to great to resist. And he this once upon a groom will he regret not marrying the girl who loved who he was and not the girl who loved what he became?
There is no test like the passage of time, on the days when loyalty will mean more than love and betrayal will way against promises made.
Where am I in all this? I will marry again, can I put my ego behind the needs of a union based on love, mutual respect and a shared view of the future ~ I think that this time, this man this new found understanding of me…I have a good chance.
