For all we have been through and all that is to come

For all we have been through and all that is to come

I am typing up the script for the wedding of two of my favorite people in the world. Never underestimate the joy of a wedding. Even though it was incredibly hard for me to attend my sister’s wedding – I got over my own personal issues and looked at the joy of the moment rather then the baggage I was brining to the situation. I never thought I would even say the word wedding again, much less attend and be joyous at two of them in the same year.

Both the wedding of my sister and the wedding of these two kind and courageous people are “non-traditional”. My sister had a “festivis spectacular” at the renaissance fair. All costumed and corseted the guests reveled amongst the merry folk while we celebrated a love and engagement that was longer then both of my marriages (oops, that one was about me again – sorry) But seriously. My sister’s wedding was beautiful and perfect for them. Their wedding represented them as a couple and it made the guests feel the joy of a wedding and the joy of their relationship.

The wedding I will be officiating tonight (yes, I have the power vested in me!!!) is similar in the fact that the love is strong and the family supportive and that it is also “non-traditional” but it is different as well. This wedding will be catered by the bride herself (lucky for all of us as she is an incredible cook and hostess). It will also take place at the furtive hour, or rather the stroke after since legally it must be performed on 1/1/07. And the wedding will be in the apartment they will share with each other. But this wedding is no less about joy and no less about celebrating the joy of the relationship of this couple. It will be as sweet and as beautiful because love is like that as are the ways we show each other that love.

Someone said to me yesterday that she often felt too old to learn. Granted it was in the context of learning highly complex post-grad level data crunching (which frankly I’m not too old to learn, I just never could). But the truth is if we want to learn, we will. And actually sometimes even if we don’t want to, we will. Take weddings. After the two failed ones I have had, in truth, even before the latest one to fail really failed… I said I would never get married again. And in fact I (as short sighted and emotionally damaged people often do – and man am I one of those) swore off relationships all together.

But slowly – and thanks to these two weddings and seeing people I love very much bond their love to each other with a show to the world of their seriousness… I am slowly getting back to the idea that a relationship is a good thing. The jury is still out on actual weddings (in relation to having one of my own), but if my Tarot card readings of the past few weeks are correct – I should have one again and perhaps prove the “3rd time’s a charm” adage.

I’m not saying I will run out tomorrow and hitch up with the next person I see – I have just decided I will leave the possibility open and if it happens, perhaps I won’t run away just because of the context of what I view as my own failings in my last two relationships. Everyone and every situation is different and humans can justify them selves into or out of a paper bag, but perhaps that is what we are meant to do. To justify our new follies with the learning of the past and to move forward hopefully not blindly. I wish that I had gotten it right before now. That I had had one single and good for me relationship that has lasted for years. That that relationship was bonded by marriage and that the trappings of that were ours and we reveled in them. But I do not have that. Instead I have some good years and some years spent in pain. Not that I would not have that if I had remained married either time (Not that I had a choice in the second having been threatened in all kinds of ways to make sure I went through with the divorce). Perhaps that is the point. That married or not you go through life learning a bit about yourself at every stage and you either choose to use that knowledge or not. Marriage is different for everyone and different even in meaning for in the actual couple to be married. But that does not mean you should dismiss it out of hand.

There is a book called “The Essential Rumi” translated by Coleman Barks. I have a copy of that book with this inscription “For all we have been through and all that is to come”. The book was given to me out of love and I read it now knowing this but knowing too that the love that it holds is different now. But in the spirit of Rumi - t is not the thing that holds the love but the universe and it is not the universe that gives the love but yourself – open yourself to your own love so that you may receive it from others and from the universe and in turn know the thing and yourself and the universe and the love.

Lesson = never say never and don’t let your own bitterness get in the way of your own future. “For all we have been through and all that is to come” is as true now as it was when I, as a blushing bride (times two…), first received it. It is just true in a different way.

Now back to the script!