Weddings and Wistful Feelings of Old

I was sitting in Barnes and Noble on Monday morning about two weeks ago, when a young couple comes in and sits down. Within five minutes a man joins them at their table and soon they begin to discuss the couples wedding that will be happening later this summer. The man who joined them is apparently the one who will be doing the music for them. He had a rather loud voice so all around in the cafe could hear his plans. They spoke of the type of music, costs and what people like and what the couple wanted. Seeing the couple, so young and in love made me look back on the first of two of my most serious relationships and marriage. It made me wistful to think of those times and what I wanted to do and inevitably how it all turned out.

The first thing that came to my mind was my very first relationship with my high school love. We were engaged and together for about 7 years. I had a lovely diamond and we had planned to get married sometime after college. We did not have a set date but I spent my time pouring over bridal magazines month after month getting ideas about everything. Finally I had the perfect wedding in mind and my fiance agreed with me. It would be an evening wedding right around 6pm so that meant all formal. I was not a fan of the organ and did not want the traditional organ music. I wanted a string quarter playing things like Pachebel's Cannon and some Vivaldi. That was the perfect music for an evening wedding. Lots of flowers. Yes, there would be lots of flowers around. Peonies and calla lilies. The reception would be heavy hors d'oeuvres and pink champagne punch would flow like water. For the reception we would have cool jazz and some reggae. It was my dream wedding. It was our dream wedding.

It got derailed in a big way. I was in college when my old boyfriend and I began to really solidify what we wanted for wedding plans. Now I was coming out of a home where my mother was "mommy dearest" in every sense. My confidence was broken and had been for a very long time. I remember looking back at that time and thinking that I would never live past my 20's. I was so broken that I could not see me with any future, so getting married was a big deal and planning for the future was even bigger. I would have a future. I was hoping so. Well, I presented our plans to my mother because she was asking about them. I gave her the run down of what we wanted.

She hated everything. Because the parents of the bride paid for the wedding, I began to get really scared. I should have known. It was as it has always been. She did not like the music, the time, the songs, the flowers and after she got all wound up saying she hated everything about it, she said she would not pay for anything if we did not have organ music. Finally after trying to tell her this was our wedding, my dream... she said she was not going to have anything to do with it and would not even attend! Well that was that. All our dreams dashed. Because I was in such a broken place--before therapy--I lost all hope. We would not be having a dream wedding. Not at all.

Well, my mother soon did all she could to sabotage the relationship. She intimidated my fiances' mother, decided that my fiance and his family were common. Common as street dogs and she would have nothing to do with them, so there was not meeting of the mothers. When I graduated from college, I got a great job in Atlanta. While the relationship with my fiance was heading downward, I had hope that if we could get away from this town and these dysfunctional people we could make things our own and move forward.

I asked him to move with me. He was undecided. At the same time, he needed a new car and I told him that since we were thinking still of the future, he should get a sedan style...not a sports car. We went round and round regarding the future. I guess it had too many things against it. Well he came over to my apartment one day prior to the move and I did not see his beat up Nova. We had been driving in the beat up Nova for four years. He had gotten the new car but not the sedan that was good for a family. He had the sports car. I was crushed. That was not looking to the future. It was a two seater. Well, I asked him again if he would move with me to Atlanta to start anew. He refused. I gave him back the ring. He did help me move to Atlanta but that was the end of us. Our future was gone...just like dust in the wind.

I have seen him since I have come back home after being gone for 10 years. He seems the same to me. Still in that place where I left him when I moved away to Atlanta. In the years after I left, he ended up getting a girl pregnant before they were married and I found that out the hard way. It had been about 4 years that I had been gone. I began to think that I needed to seek him out and see if he was single and if he still was interested in me. I called around and sent a card two as all his numbers had changed. He had even changed jobs. I do not remember how I found him, but one day I dialed a number and it was him.

The conversation was a little stilted. His way. I was happy to be talking to him. Finally I picked up on that. I asked him how he was doing again and he said that he was good, with a child on the way. A heavy weight began to cause my heart to sink. He was the type to never leave a child. I asked him what happened? He said that she was right there next to him as he spoke to me. Well, I wished him the best and told him congratulations. I hung up the phone and immediately began to cry. I felt like I had lost the most important person in my life. I had not realized that I was still holding a torch for him. I cried.

I cried and then cried some more. For what was lost. All those years of being together was all for naught. I cried for the time we spent together and the fun we had. I cried for the bad times too. I cried because all my dreams of having a wedding that was my fairy-tale was gone. I cried because I felt all alone in the world. The one person who was always on my side was now with someone else. I cried for the many things I suddenly felt that I had to say to him and would now never have the chance to say.

But that was a while ago.

I have seen him in the past 2 years and I now know that it was a good thing that we never made it. There is a reason that your ex is your ex. It was never meant to be. He is in a very unhappy marriage to the same women that he had the child with. He and I seem so very incompatible now. We have spoken on the phone and it seems that now we have not a thing in common. I wonder if it was the same way back when and we were simply blinded by our love? What a thought. Some of the same bad habits that he had back then he still has and they are just as annoying now as they were then.

I can see clearly now. I do not think we would have made it either. But, you never know. We could have come together and worked together and it might have worked. I just know that seeing what I see now, it seems unlikely. Our phone conversations confirm that we are in very different places. Even so, I think of those plans of old.

I never had that grand wedding. I never was that fairy tale bride. I never wore that beautiful white dress with the long train and veil. I never got that walk down the aisle to Vivaldi. I think sometimes that I should have a grand party some day, at 6pm, formal, with heavy hors d'oeuvres and the pink champagne punch would flow like water! I would have music, a mixture of classical, reggae and cool jazz. I would wear a fancy dress! I would be the belle of the ball.

I still have hope. I still dream.