Requiem for a wedding.

I wonder why people make wedding receptions feel like a goodbye party.

I recently attended one for a dear, dear friend. Let me tell you about this friend. She was someone who, against all odds and reason, became my friend and was there for me during a difficult time in my life. Almost every day of last summer, she loved me as if I were her brother and helped me when I needed it the most. And I think I’ll probably never have that with her again. Things always change when people get married, which was all I could think about while I was at her wedding reception, and she was as beautiful and jovial and alive as always. Her story goes on without me. Exeunt: I have left her tale as a character, probably forever. Although I know we will probably speak again, it won’t be like it was in my last summer in the college town I loved…sitting there listening to her, and having her listen to me.

Sometimes when I wonder why it feels like the universe has conspired to make me exactly the strange person that I am, and destiny conspired to bring me to the people and places I needed to be at, that I was chosen for a role in people’s lives that brings so many mixed feelings. I met someone recently who sympathized with me on the feeling that our lives are not our own, but for her it was a joyful, pleasant thing. I would have to say that reading this blog would deceive my readers into believing that it is not so with me. I said mixed feelings: this is true. It was a joy to meet my friend, as it is a joy to have helped her in her times of struggle, and to have her in return help me last summer…all because of chance, it would seem. But the 'saying goodbye' is as painful as the 'getting to know' is joyful. I always lose as much as I gain. And that’s when I write about it. Because, what else is there to do? You can’t go back in time. So I immortalize my memory in type.

I do know that it is not truly destiny, chance, or the universe, but God that has done these wonderful things to me and through me. But as much as I wish it did, this has never brought me much comfort. Even when I sit in silence over the thought that God loves me and that my day will come, it never quite overcomes the feeling that the sort of happy ending I see at weddings is not for me, never for me. I darkle, I tinct, the Man in Black from the Dark Tower would say. It just doesn’t seem to “fit” the theme of my story. My life is about moving, growing, building an empire of love and friendship, watching it topple, and then building it all over again. Perseverance, not permanence; truth, not trust; cynicism, and not certainty.

But, of course, I still want it. Why not? It’s what I do. It’s all I do.

And so I go on as I always do, and I always make the choices that seem like they are the only choices…and when things go well, they go well. When things don’t go well, all I can ask is “what else was I supposed to do?” And there is never a reply.

For now though, I am happy. I am tired and happy, and I could not ask for better than that.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for a change in theme.

Happiness and memories.

I've noticed there are two types of people: those who see a happy picture from long ago and feel happy, and those who see a happy picture from long ago and feel sad.

I am one of the latter. The difference between myself and those who see old pictures with happiness is that the happy ones are the ones who know that those times will come again. Me, I don't. The future terrifies me.

Why? Because I know something other people don't. I have discovered that when people have a good group of friends, they don't look for more friends. They don't care about friends that have gone before them - at least, not in any real conscious, present way, just in the abstract "I hope wherever they are and whatever they're doing, they are happy." As long as my friends have plenty of other friends, I am disposable. The only way it is ever different is if I do something to make them feel guilty - or their other friends leave them. And neither of those are solutions that interest me. This is the truth.

My time is over. It has been long over, in fact. My senior year of college was two years ago, and now I am all washed up, even if am still a student - a graduate student, but a student nonetheless. I look around me and see happy people who were first brought into this community by my class - some of them by me personally. It has never really seemed to matter. So long as they are happy, they could care less how lonely I am. They can certainly pretend to care - they have to in order to feel OK about themselves - but in the end, if I never reached out and asked people to spend time with me, I would probably talk to people a couple times a year. There are a few out there who are legitimately busy - I understand that very well, indeed I do - but there are others who have their band, their group, their "one from many" of which I can never hope to take part. I'm too old - even when I do somehow spend time with people here, I feel like an outsider. I belong to a group of people who have already left me behind.

The times I've been happiest in life is when I really felt a part of something greater than myself. The times when I wasn't just a friend, but part of a group of friends. Those were the best. And now, I am on the verge of leaving behind every good thing I've had on earth. All that I ever really had was here, at school. If I couldn't make friendships that last here, what hope do I have out there, where it is so much harder?

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream of constant memory.

Goodbyes.

Goodbyes are definitely the hardest part of any friendship.

I can always feel a hard goodbye coming on. Someone who is dreading a goodbye always starts to remember things out loud. They'll make more of an effort to say hi and spend a few more minutes with you when they might not have. They'll be more generous and all-around friendly, not that they weren't before but it will seem like they are trying to fit in every good thing they can do to their friends because they may not get another chance.

Well, I try to make them feel special. Because really, the greatest fear of anyone saying goodbye is that they will be forgotten. That's what my Mom's greatest fear when she died: that we would forget her. So I make sure they know they won't be forgotten. I try, anyway. Throw a party for them...give them a card. Something.

I like to think I'm good at finding the right things to say to make it better. There is a phrase I like that goes "No two christians say goodbye for the last time." Although, it makes it sound like it supports the "once saved, always saved" fallacy, so most of the time I change it to "No true christians say goodbye for the last time." I try to say some nice things I will always remember about the person and how I will always remember and appreciate them.

The problem is I am usually not the best person to be saying those things...so it always feels pretty empty. I always wish my words were coming out of someone else's mouth, notably one of their closer friends.

But it's always better to at least say something.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to see you again.