tis the season

This past weekend continued the annual summer wedding series that has been occurring within my extended family for the past several years. And with the exception of one remaining cousin, there is nobody left in the family who could possibly be married…withstanding one of those Jerry Lee Lewis marriages…which means that my wedding attendance days are numbered.

And for this, I am extremely grateful.

Because while the thought of having that ‘someone’ in my life is nice, I’m not certain how ‘nice’ it would actually be in practice. The thought of spending weekends doing yard work, pulling up kitchen tiles, and making curtain excursions to weigh the merits of varying fabrics…do we choose the floral print or the quaint little fruit pattern?...don’t rank high on my list of fun ways to spend my weekend. Nor would I particularly enjoy outings to visit all the aunt in-laws, nephew in-laws, and grandma in-laws.

This being said, however, weddings always remind me of just how lonely being alone really is.

The exchanging of vows, the constant clinking of glasses to pressure the newlyweds into kissing all through dinner, and the ever popular ‘first dance’…followed by an invitation for all married couples to join them…do a great job of branding me as ‘single’. How each night, I know that I’m headed to bed alone. And how every day after work, I know that an empty apartment awaits me…complete with a solo plate setting for dinner, a dinner which is generally something of the microwave variety because I really can’t see the point of cooking a meal when it’s just me. Weddings never fail to spell this out…in big capital letters with many exclamation points afterward.

Luckily, the air conditioning in the church wasn’t working, so as I stood there on that 95 degree day, sweating through every article of clothing I had on, most of my brain power was focused on staving off heat stroke rather than dwelling on just how alone I am.