journal entry — Sunday, October 6th 2024
This year I attended my first two weddings. They answered a number of questions I’ve subconsciously been harboring like, “Will I cry when they say their vows?” (yes) and “Is there any truth to the classic wedding shenanigans I’ve seen on TV?” (no, at least not that I’ve seen yet). Conversely, these weddings also raised some questions for me. First and foremost, my previously dormant itch to decide prematurely on my wedding dress style and guest list was reawakened. That was a nice one, though, to daydream about.
The question I’m more concerned with, though, arose again and again at both weddings, during the couples’ first dance, the father-daughter, and the mother-son. With the lights centered on them, their steps perfectly lined up to the song chosen just for that moment, and everyone’s gaze trained on their faces, their hair, their clothes, their step…what do they talk about? Because they’re not just smiling, their mouths aren’t still — they’re whispering to each other, all 3 of those pairs, and as I watched them I was entranced in this thought. What were they saying?
It would be easy to assume they’re just commenting on the situation they’re in, exchanging soothing remarks to ease the awkwardness of being stared at while they dance by dozens of their closest friends and family.
But I really had a feeling that wasn’t it, at least not all of it. These dances marked, essentially, the end of their old lives and the beginning of the new. Their words must be important, momentous, to match the scene.
There have been few times in my life when I’ve felt this pressure of the moment rest on me. Blowing out the candles on my 16th birthday cake, maybe, or walking up to shake hands with my cross country coach at my final banquet. But in the few of these moments that exist, I’ve been alone.
This isn’t a surprise, sure, that I’m seventeen and unmarried. It’s really no different from anyone else. But I’ve spent my solitude preparing for my turn to command the present, to whisper while everyone watches. I’ve never been too confident in my words, at least the ones I force to leave my mind and my journal into the gamble of conversation. But I want to be proud of what I say in those moments, when I’m getting married; when I’m handed my diploma after high school, college, and med school. I want to be proud of who I am so that the fear falls away and the palpability of my worth takes its place.
So between now and then, I am spending every minute, and every word, becoming a person I’d be happy to see succeed. A person not just deserving of success and of happiness, but of accolades and of true love. I spend each minute and every word like I’m being charged for them, because in a way I am. I’ll never get this day back, and for all I know what I’ll remember in seventy years won’t be what I said on my wedding day while I danced, in those moments I spent my life waiting for. It will be what I felt on a random Sunday, my senior year of high school, the day after my cousin’s wedding.
This is why I run 40 miles a week. This is why I spend every week night, and every Sunday, doing homework. It’s why I work somewhere that challenges me, every summer, and why I never let go of the sentiment that “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”. Because as much as the words we say in special moments seem to matter, it’s the words we say, and the things we do, in between them that make us who we are. In a way, preparation is the real test — just as with schoolwork, and running, and just about everything except that dance.
The Dilemma Of It All 