strike that

poster of an old rodeo

Beth’s wedding was harder than I expected, which I guess was naïve. It’s just that I loved Beth in the kind of way that is so big you know it’s not going to happen that way again. Like how you can’t love somebody again the way you loved the first person you loved, when you thought that if you ever woke up without them you wouldn’t make it through the day. And then you do. Not that most of us ought to be with the first person we loved, but still. It’s a crappy lesson. You don’t get to love anyone quite that way again, and it’s too bad. It’s not necessarily smaller love, I feel obligated to say. Just different.

And Beth wasn’t the first person I loved, but she was the first person I loved and made an intentional life with. And this weekend I visited her new life, in Seattle, which is different in all the big ways but which still contains odd objects that feel misplaced from my own: dishes and towels and a doormat with ladybugs. And I’ve done that before too, and it’s always disorienting but doable.

But the wedding was hard – not before and not during, when it was joyful and right and full of squaredancing. Just after. When I left and couldn’t keep from crying, the wrong sort of crying for a wedding, and I felt selfish and stupid. Joshua drove quietly and found me the country station.

It was a good weekend. I canoed on Lake Washington. I visited the new sculpture park. I practiced my Spanish. I ran around with Zoe the dog, who used to be my dog. And it was a good weekend for all the things that weren’t about me this time, and which I feel lucky to have been there for. This Adulthood though, it asks so much sometimes. At some point I wouldn't mind feeling equipped for it.

posted by tortaluga @ 12:34 AM