Twenty-Four: I Owe You This Much (Nothing's On Upper Middle)

This post comes to you from the spare bedroom of my mom's place, where I have arranged to spend the night prior to my wedding. I was embarrassed to realize that I had been making arrangements with photographers and videographers without fully confirming my mom (and Ross') knowledge, which is distressingly, embarrassingly in character. I had been so caught up in wedding planning that it becomes hard to keep track of who needs to know what, especially since - and I try not to hold this against anybody - I often feel isolated from my family these days.

It's embarrassing and I hope it doesn't prove too much of an inconvenience or a bother, but it has  soured the situation for me, just slightly. That last hit of pre-wedding frustration, oh, I was wondering where it was going to come from.

I'm writing this because, like many things I write (and many things I don't) if I don't get it out now, it will be forgotten in the crushing tide of life. The wedding is tomorrow. The next chapter of my life ostensibly begins, but what I'm hoping is that I'm "back to normal." Will I feel like acting differently as a married man? Or is it true that, as I've been telling people for months, I've really been married for years? The truth is probably somewhere in between.

I'm writing this because, as I said, if I don't it will be forgotten. That doesn't mean it's necessarily important to remember, but memory seems to be at a premium these days. I am waiting for my phone to charge to a satisfactory degree so I can use it as an alarm. In this strange, surprisingly cold, room, the outlets are far from the bed.

It's lonely without Mel. I always worry about getting to sleep without her near me, because I always had the tendency of being kept up by my mind. Which is funny because sleeping next to her often presents its own challenges. So when I finally do fall asleep, I usually have the best sleep ever, a fact I am duly embarrassed by and try not to rub in.

The day before my wedding. It feels like it should be bleeding significance, but it was just a day to get stuff done. Ran some last minute errands, wrote my letter to Mel pouring my heart out about our love. We went to the venue to set up our centrepieces and other items. We are T-Minus however many hours, you know?

The night before was our rehearsal. My groomsmen are not all always fully formed adults, and part of me wishes I could get over that and enjoy it for the earnest playfulness it is and even participate, and part of me is like damnit, just pretend to be a normal-ass person for my sake right now and put a lid on your big kid instincts. But that's wrong of me to think, because I knew what I was getting. That, I can deal with.  Last minute discussions of arrangements, I am flummoxed. Quite a few people were getting at me about those in the final weeks.

As much as I had said, you become a celebrity to the people in your life when you are getting married, they also all feel like they have full access to you and their problems are as important to you as they are to them. It could very well be a two-way street -- who am I really, to bigtime my friends and family, just because I happen to be doing this wedding thing? But at the same time, your own wedding is supposed to be the one time when you can be a diva.

So, the rehearsal went fine, and we went for dinner after at Chuck's, and that was fine. Eric told me he was fighting a cold, which on top of working until 1 AM tonight makes me very worried. Last thing I need is more things to worry about. I worry about people's reactions to this and that minor thing, but honestly I need to take my own advice and remember that it's their fault if they don't like it.

Despite all the stress, I was reflecting today that there was a lot of good stuff about doing a wedding. It was fun to source vendors and find photographers (cool people, I wish I could have hired them all and been friends with them - did I say that already?) And executing Mel's dreams and ideas. The tough part for me is pinning down those fine details.

Well, I have reached - or proclaimed myself to reach which is nearly the same thing - a state beyond. Where I know things will go wrong here and there and I will myself not to care. I was reflecting how at other peoples' weddings I saw minor flaws and thought "Not at my wedding, I'm going to have that shit under control." And only now do I realize that I never could have. That it is simply too much for anyone short of a ten-thousand-dollar event planning expert to pull off perfectly.

Someone's dinner will be cold. Some of the wrong music will get played. One or two people will miss a cue. Dinner will run long or be rushed through. It's over. It's done. It's basically already happened.

It's not a fairy tale wedding. It was never going to be. We are authentic people who want our weird, lumpy life to be reflected in the wedding we give people. That's my feeling. And that comes with its own catches.

I just can't wait.

But here I am, sitting up on my tablet in this strange bed, having nearly fallen asleep in a reclining chair watching Dateline about John Sandoval with my mom. That's how I spent the night before my wedding, waiting for my real life to begin. Before I left Mel, it was just mundane details of putting together our suitcase for tomorrow, and playing our song quickly on my phone. We'd had soup for dinner, the low key night we had wanted.

I wonder what 2020 will bring. A refreshed romance? A new look at my career aspirations? Or more doldrums and frustrations? Well, I know whatever it is, it's me and her. It's us.

Enough stalling. This post has stubbornly refused to grow into anything seriously profound. I used my best stuff already.

Keep on rockin
-Scotto