just chasing dreams

Thanks to a lot of help from our family and friends, most especially my sisters and cousin, I married that cute co-worker on Saturday. It definitely wasn’t the wedding we had been planning, but it was lovely and special all the same. We took a COVID-careful honeymoon the last two days touring each other’s college campuses and eating take out meals (that we picked up well masked and very careful) on local parks we love and just enjoying being together.

Yesterday we made the decision to re-imagine our wedding. I say reimagine because we have been told my several that we could change the date, have the wedding we planned, and I know that, but at the end of the day, I like the date we picked, and most importantly, I love him. The thing I want most is to be married to him, for him to absently call me his wife without having to backtrack or clarify, for it to be accurate every time I think of him as my husband, for him to wear the simple tungsten band we picked for him, and for us to continue forward in this life we decided to build together. Our marriage has always been the most important part of our wedding, and so a global pandemic can’t and won’t change that.

But still, my heart hurts. It hurts to think of the friends we won’t have there on our day — my dearest friends from college, my state officer teammates, our coworkers at school, the guys we play Magic and board games worth. It hurts as I think about the family members we won’t get to hug that day, even as I try to narrow and narrow the list of people I feel I can’t do this without.

The thought of my aunt and my cousin not being there, the only family I have left on my dads side, is overwhelming. Planning my wedding without my dad being there has already been too hard, but to not have the last people who loved him as I do there that day? I’m crying just thinking about it. And yet, if it comes down to it, that’s a decision I’ll have to make.

We go back and forth — if we’re going to have a ceremony in our backyard, with our huge deck, a house, a garage, how many is the cut off? 40 feels like too many, with our siblings, parents, wedding party, the few other relatives my survivalist feelings told me I couldn’t do without . So who to cut? My brother’s new girlfriend? Sure. My brother-in-law? I couldn’t. My grandmother, one of my favorite people in the whole world — will it even be safe for her to come? We could cut our readers and their significant others: two dear friends from work who have been there for us since we started teaching, they’d understand. But who next? The groomsmen that are my fiancé’s dear friends, but not family. Then do I cut my two cousins, who are bridesmaids? But I have so much more family than him anyway, is that fair?

There are so many questions. Will the hall let us push the date? To have a one year anniversary reception, which is our plan? Will the caterer? We’re now too close for our cancellation windows, but surely a reschedule for not-pandic times seems fair? Will I be able to get my wedding dress altered? Will my plain, worn down hair look okay? Will I be able to go to a store and buy M the special bottle of whiskey I’ve been promising him as his 30th birthday gift, all while secretly planning it as a wedding gift for almost two years now?

There’s also anger, not about the wedding but about the world. I am so frustrated by all the people dismissing what’s happening, belittling those taking this seriously, visiting friends and acting like this is no big deal. Damn it, grow the hell up, shove your conspiracy theories and politics aside and be a neighbor, be a friend, be anything but a selfish d-bag who thinks wearing a mask to the store is oppression.

I know in the grand scheme of the world, my wedding doesn’t matter that much, and I know thinking about it doesn’t exactly make me selfless, but this is my little piece of the internet, public but not out in public, so I’m going to be selfish right here.

I know I’ll get married, I know it will be it’s own kind of lovely, I know we’ll have a big celebration in the future, and we’ll be happy and together and that’s what matters. But still, the little piece of me I try to keep hidden from my dear fiancé (who is also struggling with this all himself), is so sad for the day I don’t get to have, the plans I have to change. For the younger woman who thought she would never have that day, while she made it happen for her friends, her sisters, happy but always just a little lonely too, who now will not have the day she expected and finally thought would come true.

Again, I know a wedding is not a marriage, but it’s still a dream we made together, my love and I, and hurts to let it go for something so outside our control.