That Old, Familiar Pain

C-------'s getting married a week from yesterday. I'll be there, front row, center, crying because I'll be so, so happy that she finally found someone who makes her as happy as she deserves to be - which is so, so happy. As someone who went through the ups and downs of relationships simultaneously and shared in her joys and heartaches, it is so refreshing and thrilling to see her with the one man who could ever come close to deserving her. I've seen how happy she's been in the last year; the change from how things used to be is beyond dramatic.

I know I blogged about this a while back, but my thought has been confirmed: everyone was betting that I'd be the first to tie the knot. Obviously it was still a few years down the road, but it was on a lot of people's minds that R------ and I would be heading down the aisle relatively soon. Instead, it's C-------. I promise I'm not bitter, truly. I'm just... A little bruised? Feeling foolish that I'm going to my dear friend's wedding not only unmarried but single and alone? I know I should be focusing on the fact that my dear friend has found true love at last and that I get to party with some of my besties in the party-est town in the country and we're gonna get trashed and have a blast and I am, really, I am. It's just sinking in that my life plan is still stubbornly stuck to the drawing board with nothing but dirty eraser marks on it while hers is beginning to fill with color and beautiful pictures my broken pencil doesn't even dream of drawing. That's an odd metaphor but it's exactly what it looks like at this point.

But I'm going to get on a train on Thursday afternoon and party with her for the last time on Friday night and we are all going to Vegas on Sunday and she's getting married on Monday and we are going to drink and dance and celebrate that two completely random people by total chance found each other and found their soul's true self in the other. And I couldn't be happier.

“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don’t blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being “in love”, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.”~ Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli's Mandolin