Thursday, September 23, 2010

The best laid plans of mice (and me)

Growing up, I was never one of those girls who had the big book of wedding plans like the one that Monica whips out in Episode 2 of Season 7. I never had my colors chosen years ahead of time. I never dog-eared fabulous wedding gowns in the pages of "Bride" magazine.

It wasn't that I didn't want to get married. In fact, I was the vision of eternal optimism. Even though I came home from every school dance bawling my eyes out because no one had asked me to dance, I always thought that NEXT time would be different. It had to be, right? After all, my mom always told me that she thought she would never get married and she had obviously done that AND had two kids. (Thank goodness she just barely avoided spinsterhood at 19!)

I guess I always just assumed that marriage was an inevitability. After all, hundreds of thousands of people get married every day. So what if no one asked me to dance in high school. There's always college, right? ....Wait, I dated one guy during college until he dropped out during my junior year and I called it off. After that, I never went on a single date during my whole college career..... No matter! When I get out into the "real world", there will be scads of opportunities for dating and marriage. After all, I'm young and I have plenty of time. This is a new world and women are waiting longer to settle down and start their family lives.

Finally after college and out in the "real world" I did finally go out on lots of dates. I was the master of the first date (thanks to an introduction by Match.com, mostly. {sigh}), but I couldn't seem to keep them interested enough for a second date. Sometimes that was just fine with me, but too often I was simply emotional roadkill when that promised "I'll call you" never came.

I always thought that my emotional rock bottom in the relationship area came in 1997 when my (younger) brother told me he was going to ask his girlfriend to marry him. My response to him was an admittedly shameful, “Have you lost your mind?”

There were so many things about the situation that I didn’t understand. First, my YOUNGER brother wasn’t supposed to get married BEFORE me, was he? If he does, what does that mean? What does that say to the world about me? Second, I couldn’t believe he was marrying HER. At the time that they met, my brother and I were very close. We were attending the same college, had lunch together every day and somehow the boy who had driven me nuts when we lived under our parents’ roof had turned into a very good friend.

We were close and SHE was butting in. Matt and I would spend hours hanging with one another before they met, now I wasn’t allowed to spend 15 minutes with him before she needed his undivided attention. And now she was going to be around FOREVER? Til death do they part and all that?

(Stay tuned for the rest of the story.)

1 comment:

Amber Page Writes said...

My brother's first serious girlfriend dumped him the day before my wedding (I am the younger). He looks kinda like he wants to hang himself in every wedding photo he's in.

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