10:57 a.m. - January 09, 2005
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Bathsheba was beautiful and her wedding the most intimate and touching ceremony I've attended in years. Correction: Ever. I can't think of another event that comes close.
I teared up when she walked down the aisle with her brother, when Mike read his vows and she read hers, and again when they were charged with the responsibilities of a Christian marriage. One part of Bathsheba's vows included the line I am convicted that this marriage is an act of God, designed for each to complement the other as whole as any sacred object of creation and that is it exactly.
The overtly Christian imprint made me a bit sad thinking about my own faith and how it would be difficult to have a wedding like this between two men, given my conservative brand of Christianity and evangelical Christendom's disapproval (to say it mildly) of manifested homosexual pairings, religious or not. For a moment there I too was caught up in the fantasy of wedding-making, just like the young girls across the aisle from me; it's not in the cards for me on numerous levels.
So I went despite the urgings not to, told myself I don't care I'm going alone but how quickly I joined the couple walking into the church nevertheless. I did care, I do care, felt terribly awkward and alone. Some people are blessed to be surrounded by friends and family, to have an address book full with names and addresses, and reminders to send birthday and anniversary cards. Me, it's like I'm in a glass cube and no matter how much I try, I can only get the faintest whiff or taste of understanding people but rather than become surfeit on just a passing moment of understanding ask myself, is the effort worth this gain? and I don't have an answer. I absolutely hated sitting on that pew by myself and resolved: I will not attend another wedding solo, period.
Eh. Now that most of my close and dwindling number of friends have married, I don't anticipate any more invitations.
I didn't go to the reception and I hope Bathsheba didn't notice. Instead I drove around Seattle for almost three-and-a-half hours in the night, just thinking about thoughts that shouldn't be aired. Passed my (second) favorite coffee shop brightly lit and the fire roaring and considered for a brief moment going in with my book, but the thought of having my solitude so brightly illuminated on a rainy Saturday evening made it impossible to stop.
I am responding selfishly to Bathsheba's wedding. But I can't help thinking that my confidante, my best friend, is gone. I don't have so many that I can overlook or shift depth towards somebody else, but it has been comforting - a godsend - to have someone know me so well and be the only Christian friend I have to ask me about the guys I'm seeing and who says that while homosexuality is a sin, so is waking up and not thinking of God first and in that way all of us are sinners, no worse or better than another and besides, if somebody gives me shit then let her know and she'll kick ass. I'm going to miss her - I miss her already.
I don't understand why it's so difficult for me to interact with people. The easy answer is just to label myself a loner but that doesn't ring accurate. I don't know what does, but the image that comes to mind is me loving people yet hiding in the dark, like I have the plague and don't want anybody to know.
Bother.
I know Bathsheba is happy and that this marriage will last and be fruitful and I pray - I don't pray anymore, really. I don't think one must for God to know, like last night when I hoped I would not be a lone figure in the last pew like a straggler or interloper, and then another solitary man sat directly behind me. Of course, when one of the bridesmaids went by they touched hands and whispered hi honey, but still - you get the point. I don't, but that's the way it goes.
