I went to a wedding the other day for the daughter of one of my mother’s oldest friends. The bride was not much older than me, which might have struck a kind of nerve if I wasn’t already so absorbed in my own emotional fatigue. There are too many things I am failing at, so many unresolved predicaments that take precedence. And so maybe I felt it all the more keenly, the sense that I was a loser in the surest way, watching this woman accept, with grace and earnest enthusiasm, this man as her beloved for the rest of their natural lives (they were wed inside the hall of a huge church by a supremely traditional pastor--there was no way words like “pact” and “eternal” were not going to enter into this) in a perfectly beautiful ceremony. Oh, how simple and lovely, I thought. Some part of her life has been irrevocably decided. I considered this a measure of success.
The cake was a dry and flavorless sponge, warm from sitting under the lights. There was no dancing, but driving home on the highway we had the best view of the evening fireworks show at the theme park.













