That Afternoon Where I Thought, “Maybe I’ve Made a Mistake”

Yesterday, I did something I haven’t done in a while.

I went to a wedding.

It was between a friend I had a 10 year hiatus of interaction with, and his beautiful, happy bride.

It didn’t occur to me at first, as I sat down on the traditional white folding chair, among friends, many of whom were high school friends or acquaintances. I stared at the pond, at geese, as the others talked about geese, catching them, keeping one as a pet, eating one even.

But the thought came, and I was not ready for it, once the groom stood there, this person, this man, this friend I never thought I would see again, honestly. I was happy to have him back around — our bond in those teenage years was too strong. I’m sidetracked — the thought wasn’t about that.

“This could have been me. That could have been me. For all the bullshit, the pain that being with someone else causes, that could have been me. That would have been me, one year and nearly four months ago, but I said no, in the end. Look at how happy he looks. He’s got a tear in his eye, and he never cries. He’s so nervous, so occupied, and yet, you can tell he knows it’s right.”

“That could have been me.”

I ran from my wedding, bailed quickly and quietly. We ended things, canceled it all, split the refunds, repaid her mother, and that was that. All of it, all of the thought, the preparation, the planning, gone in an instant.

I was happy for them, I was. But I suddenly had this overwhelming feeling that I had fucked up. I’ve had it here and there, in bits and pieces.

The last weddings I attended were last year, over the summer, right in the aftermath of the breakup I had gone through. One of them was literally on the other side of the country, with friends met through World of Warcraft. I held it together that whole ceremony, with the help of friends I had rarely or never met in person, but here we all were, and it felt just the same as if I had known them fully for years.

The other was for one of my first friends ever, a woman I’ve known for 24 years and that at one point, my dead father pushed for me to marry. Of course, I was 10, she was 9, and life had a million other ideas for that bond.

In those weddings, I kept it together through the sheer force of pushing forward. In my head, I could sit and think about right I was to make that decision, the one I made, and to be here wasn’t reminding me that it had happened and that I would have been just like them.

I had to pretend I was one-hundred percent correct in my assertion to end, because if I wasn’t, then this whole thing would be sad, a somber reminder of the happiness I could have had.

Now, with over a year of perspective behind me, I can see the truth of it all.

Some of that came through other experiences — toxic rebound relationships with poor characters, failures at online dating, bowing to a self-absorbed narcissist while she denied any culpability in my emotional state when she ended things in the way she did, and then months being alone, just alone, with me and only me.

These experiences all taught me things, and I don’t regret them. Ultimately, they were why I left in the first place — a fear that I hadn’t lived, coupled with the idea that perhaps I was missing out on something more by staying. We had our moments of mistreatment in the 8 years we spent together, but in the end, I had no way of truly gauging how bad things could be.

Oh, how quickly one learns.

It’s easy to see a lack of communication in the constant text messages and in-person chats — until you date someone who doesn’t say how she feels to you at all. Until she ends things with you, that is.

It’s simple to believe that maybe you could be more attracted to someone — until you find that attraction is a package deal, and that the prettiest wrappers often hide the worst contents. Bland on the inside would be okay compared to the situations I found myself in — narcissists, lacking compassion, incapable of seeing where they have done wrong or of even believing they could do wrong.

I thought maybe I could find acceptance for the whole of me — but you often can’t find that so easily.

I had these things in measure, not always as much as you could want, but enough. More than enough, really. We changed, we grew as people, and in many ways drifted apart, but it never really felt that way during the time spent together. She accepted me as I was, for the most part — but never dared to say something as asinine and stupid as “you’re not mind-blowing enough.” She was an interesting, attractive person — inside and out. We talked, daily — living together or not, business trips, family trips, holidays apart or together, we always talked. Not just talked, communicated — I usually knew how she felt and she I, even if we did the whole, “what’s wrong?” thing all the damn time. I never had to really think that hard about it — when she was thinking about leaving me in 2009, I knew it. When I was thinking of leaving her in 2007, she knew. We talked, we communicated, and while we had our youthful moments of cards held closely to the chest and foolish gestures, there was a peace and understanding there.

In the moment, during this wedding, where bride and groom saw each other, together, I almost lost it. I could see the joy in the faces — this friend I almost lost completely and his beautiful almost-wife — and I thought to myself:

Why was I afraid of this?

I don’t know, to be honest. Since it all has happened and is done, I can be honest with myself — I don’t know why I ran. Maybe I wouldn’t have been happy, maybe I wasn’t then, at least not fully. I know that the bug of it was there in my mind. There were aspects of our relationship that weren’t great, or good even, but we could be honest and level that we knew that.

I tell myself, nearly daily, that I didn’t make a mistake — because ultimately, mourning it does nothing, and I have a good life even still. But there are moments where I envy what I left behind, where I see its reflected glory in others around me, and I long for it back.

I left to find something greater, but maybe I left behind greater so I could just have good.

I still have a friend, and I don’t count the relationship we had as a failure — but maybe, in some ways, I failed.

I almost left, but my friends caught me. I would have gone home and written this in the heat of the moment, but I cooled off. I had my free dinner, free beers and fun. I laughed with my friends — not my closest friends or the biggest group, but a fun group of people I do enjoy being around. We danced, we acted silly, we told bad, horrible jokes, and by the end of the night, just 6 of us total in the room, we could look around and feel — mature, in a way.

I watched that last dance, bride and groom, and thought to myself.

I could have had this. I wanted this, and I’ve been thinking lately maybe I never want this. But that’s a lie, told by myself to myself as my way of dealing with the simple fact that I ran from this like a fucking coward. I hid from the fear of failure, dooming myself to fail anyways. This could have been me, and her — us, and perhaps this is my life’s only true regret — that, at least for now, I know that I could have known what they are feeling now, and I chose to run from it.

But there’s no point to a pity party either. Here I am, with a group of people that cares about me. Some of them I’ve known 10 years. Some of them I’ve known 6 months. But in our ways, we are all here, this means something, and there’s hope in the fact that even after all of my self-inflicted pain and sorrow, I am here and alive. No one has broken me, truly. Some have gotten close — Melanie did her worst with no compassion, and she’s nothing but a specter in my life and a character in my first novel — but I also bought in and saw this future that wasn’t there, where we got married (ha!) and could maybe even have kids. Amanda was negligent and nothing more — but I bought the illusion of comfort she offered, in more ways than one, and I paid dearly for it. Amber did nothing to hurt me maliciously, but did at times — and I her. We were closer than anyone I have known before or since, and with that comes some measure of pain, but there was always love, always an apology.

I ducked out of great to end up with good, or nothing. But, this too is temporary. Life moves forward for me, and if this is what I want, truly — I will have it. Already, I can look around and realize that I have potential all around me. There are former coworkers with crushes, and some that I have feelings for, or at least, curiosity about. I have a friend with benefits that shares so much in common with me that it almost feels like a relationship — a real one. We kiss, we talk, and then we don’t see each other for a month — but we’re always there and responding to each other in some way, and we keep coming back around.

Maybe I did make a mistake, and I can carry that regret. I could have been this happy.

That doesn’t mean I won’t be that happy ever again. I can and will find that happiness, and in the end, after all of the bullshit it took to arrive there, perhaps I’ll appreciate it more than the gift I got from Amber — her acceptance of my proposal. I convinced someone to say yes to the idea of being stuck with me forever once — I could do that again. The possibility is there, and perhaps it’s with someone I know and like now. The former coworker I keep chickening out of asking out, but helped move. The former trainer I see on online dating, that I want to ask, but feel odd about. Maybe it’s her, the girl I already see here and there and have sex with. Maybe it’s someone I’ve not yet met, some new face I’ll never see coming until she’s here.

Maybe there’s someone. Maybe there isn’t. I have my own happiness, I own that, and it’s everpresent in my life even with crushing doubts and occasional sorrow. I can be this happy, as happy as they are, one way or another.

I just have to be open to that, and willing to admit when I am. And that’s an improvement I can commit to making.