The Wedding
Monday, May. 21, 2007 12:41 AM

"To keep your marriage brimming,
with love in the wedding cup,
whenever you're wrong, admit it;
whenever you're right, shut up."

- Ogden Nash

The wedding. The booze. The stress.

It's finally over and done with. My sister has started over once again. Her third husband, her third marriage. The only difference this time? She was smiling before, during, and after the ceremony.

I have hope in this relationship, something I didn't have in her past two relationships. And it's not because I'm tired of feeling negative about the men she chooses to get married to, but because he makes her happy. He actually makes her happy. And that means a lot to me so I'm accepting him on pure faith.

The wedding was beautiful. My parents held it in their backyard. I can't even begin to describe their backyard. It's something else. All I can say is that there is this field in their backyard. It's full of trees, but not so many that it looks terrible. They have flowers everywhere. A pond. A bridge that goes over the pond from their backyard into the open field. They have a lot of cottonwood trees that bend in all sorts of directions so it looks very... natural. Well, it is nature. Of course it should look natural.

Anyhow, everything went off without a hitch. His family got along with my family. Then again, we didn't invite my entire family. My sister only wanted her siblings there, along with our grandparents. And oddly, my grandmother behaved herself.

My brother was home all week for the festivities. Now he's off to San Francisco tomorrow to find an apartment for Tom and himself. He's looking forward to the move. He says New York is a hard place and he's tired of living there.

I'm happy for my brother. I'm happy for my sister. But for some odd reason, I feel like my siblings are growing and changing all around me while I stay rooted in one place. They have this ability to make things happen. They go after things that I find absolutely scary. They enter into relationships neverminding the emotional risks they may be taking. They jump into unknown territory by starting new jobs and moving to different parts of the country.

They're risk takers. And while they have this desire to explore and experience new things, they still find a way of being people who are settled. And here I am. I'm not so much of a risk taker. I play things safe to the point where I don't feel like I'm living at all. I've lived in Wichita for 21 years of my life, only living away at school for 4 of those years and with my parents in a town north of here for 4 years. What kind of living am I experiencing?

I always think things through before I take action. I never buy things on an impulse unless it's something small and I know I can afford it. I only bought a house because I'm all about making sure I'm secure. I seek security like the air I breathe. I have to know that, no matter what, I'm going to be okay. I even put my money into two separate checking accounts with different interest rates because I'm all about making sure I make more money. And yet, I'm not a fortune seeker. I'm far from rich. I just have this undying fear that if I don't put money away in a safe place I'm going to end up desolute and on the streets.

And then I think about other things. Who am I going to leave all of this to when I die? What's the point of saving up all of this money if it's not going to go to anyone? What's the point of owning a house when, in the end, nobody is going to inherit it and profit from it?

I'm always preparing for the future. I'm always worried about this future that I don't know anything about. And sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I could live in the present without thinking about my future or my past.

Just sometimes, though. Just sometimes because I think that's when people truly live. And I'm so tired of not living.