Look At You Girl

My Niece is getting married.

I have posted about her on here before, she got engaged at Christmas, and is having her wedding in June. I was invited to go watch her try on dresses this last weekend, and I had mixed emotions. I knew it was going to hurt, it was going to twist the knife in my heart and open up the healing scar it sets in. I was wrong though, it didn’t hurt at all…

And look the magic fairies came flying out my ass, riding unicorns, with their friend Ed McMahon holding a check for ten million dollars. So yeah it hurt, not finding out my husband is cheating with a whore hurt, but like I stubbed my toe. Not a stub your toe and you walk it off in five minutes but the ones where you wonder if you broke it cuz it throbs all day.

It was always there in the back of my mind but I stayed present and watched as my beautiful, funny, sweet niece found a dress for her big day. I jumped into a tub of scalding water, filled with remorse and bittersweet memories, but as the day progressed my body/mind adapted and I separated the two.

My marriage was not destined to be the path of her marriage. My pain and disappointment is not preordained to be her future. We all write our own, and maybe…hopefully…Lord I pray, she will find a happy ending. Those two kids have watched as I crumbled and struggled back on to my feet. They have seen my children’s grief, have watched the darkness settle over my family, and seen my tears. Maybe my story can be a map for their journey, and they can use it to take the right path in their marriage.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all of this had a purpose? If the last two years of struggle could teach a lesson on love, life, and how to get back up. If they are ever angry, unhappy and tempted they choose to honor their promises and marriage and walk away from the easy, and back into the sometimes hard reality of marriage. If all of this could save my kids, my sweet niece from ever going through it themselves? I’d do it all again, all the pain, all the dark days, all the tears…I’d do it all again, and again, over and over, every single day for the rest of my life.

My niece found her dress, and as the delicate shimmering veil was added to her hair? A song came on the radio and played in the store…

It was the song which played at my wedding.

“And you smile at me, girl
With eyes that tell a story
That words can never say
Tellin’ me your love
Is gonna stay

And we’re standin’
Right together now
In everythin’ we do
And if my world
Should come apart
I’ll still be lovin’ you

‘Cause you mean everythin’ to me
And I’d do anythin’
To have you stay forever
I’m an ordinary man
But I feel like I could do
Anythin’ in the world
When I look at you, girl”
-Chris Ledoux-