The Great Mash-Up of Love
Tonight I walk into the hotel where my brother held his wedding dinner five years ago to attend the wedding of a woman who, had I been more courageous, would've been my first girlfriend nine years ago. I'm running late and when I arrive, everyone's in the ballroom and there's only one other guest at the registration counter—a girl whom I had a massive, crippling, consuming four-year-long crush on 13 years ago, and haven't seen in ages. If she recognizes me, she doesn't show it. We slip into the ballroom at the same time as the bride and groom, watching them march in to the song that started my friendship and eventually relationship with my ex-girlfriend, whom I broke up with last year.
All this happens in the space of one minute.
The next ninety are excruciating in the way that dinners with polite strangers are. There are summarized life histories, repeated job descriptions, qualifiers and disclaimers, opinions of the food, and small talk on utterly inoffensive, unfascinating topics. And then there is the video, the how-we-grew-up-and-met-each-other-video slideshow, which unfolds with cheesy aplomb. In its faded photographs I recognize the face that awoke many of my dreams nine years ago. I see the same smiling face in a photograph that I, in the days before digital cameras, enlarged in a photocopier and kept in a file close to my heart, in all its ink-scented, grainy glory. And I see everything else I saw behind that smile.
I suddenly remember, with agonizing force, why I loved her then.
Outside the ballroom, moving down the customary thank-you line, I meet the groom face-to-face for the first time. He knows my name. I'm surprised, and wonder if we knew each other through some other circumstances.
"I don't think so…I think I recognize you from photos. You were playing a guitar?"
Oh yes, that one. I should know.
She took that photo.
All this happens in the space of one minute.
The next ninety are excruciating in the way that dinners with polite strangers are. There are summarized life histories, repeated job descriptions, qualifiers and disclaimers, opinions of the food, and small talk on utterly inoffensive, unfascinating topics. And then there is the video, the how-we-grew-up-and-met-each-other-video slideshow, which unfolds with cheesy aplomb. In its faded photographs I recognize the face that awoke many of my dreams nine years ago. I see the same smiling face in a photograph that I, in the days before digital cameras, enlarged in a photocopier and kept in a file close to my heart, in all its ink-scented, grainy glory. And I see everything else I saw behind that smile.
I suddenly remember, with agonizing force, why I loved her then.
Outside the ballroom, moving down the customary thank-you line, I meet the groom face-to-face for the first time. He knows my name. I'm surprised, and wonder if we knew each other through some other circumstances.
"I don't think so…I think I recognize you from photos. You were playing a guitar?"
Oh yes, that one. I should know.
She took that photo.
1 comment:
None of my ex-es had invited me for a wedding dinner yet. I had always wondered if it would hurt .. but i think i can imagine an answer ...
I think the rush of poignancy would have overwhelmed me then.
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