Dysfunctional Function

There is nothing like a wedding to make you realize you are alone and completely dysfunctional when it comes to relationships.

I sat Saturday amongst people who on the outside appear to be my friends, people I have known for most of my life. Gone to grade school with, high school. Seen them all get married, one by one. The last pairing just engaged and waiting until they finish school to get married. I sat among the couples and have never felt more isolated in my life.

They talked of their weddings naturally, because of course being at another wedding made them reminisce of what they did for theirs. Talks of honeymoons and miscellaneous romantic getaways they have since taken. Couples talk, that I of course couldn't jump into, so I just sat and sought salvation in my Malibu and Diet, hoping that the hours would just fly by, which of course they didn't.

They would talk of their houses, their hours of yard work together and weekend trips to the Home Depot, like I was watching some modernized version of Ozzie and Harriet, come to life before my very eyes, here in the new millennium.

Then of course once they got to talk about children I had something to chime in here and there about, but I was barely paid attention to. My single-motherhood was no match for daddy-diaper duty and the tag-teamed parenting stories of the "new" mothers in the group. I couldn't relate anymore, I had a kid not a baby. What did I know?

Trip after trip to the thankfully open bar, and still I felt shunned. Never more uncomfortable in a setting, supposedly by those I know the best and have known the longest. My only salvation were those I had once been adopted by in college, a college I didn't even go to. My pseudo-sorority sisters who lovingly took me in, shoes kicked off and danced the night away, leaving their husbands, and thankfully all talk of them over at the bar discussing lord knows what.

I never thought at 30 years old I would be the unmarried one, well maybe unmarried, but not the single one. I never thought I would be envious of the white picket fences and trips to Home Depot. I'm not exactly overly-domestic, but I want that life, that stability, the love, the happiness.

How has it all evaded me? What did I miss? Do wrong? I used to be able to find love...well find men who loved me anyway. I never had fear of the opposite sex or what they thought of me. I never had a self-conscious bone in my body. What happened?

While packing my things to move I found boxes of things from old boyfriends. Letters, dried flowers, balloons, pictures, poems. I used to be sought after. I was once devoted to. And none of that worked out. I would hit that one year bench-mark and hit the road. They weren't Mr. Right, but they were Mr. Right Now, at least they were then.

And again on Saturday, at another wedding, I get to do it all over. Most likely seated with the same couples. Dateless and alone. Listening to how they spent Labor Day weekend weeding their gardens in their happily mortgaged homes, off to home improvement stores with their spouses in tow. What trips to the Cape they took, or vacations they are planning.

I get to sit and tune it all out. Sit and try not to cry again, as I did this past wedding, while I am reminded for hours, that ‘til death, I am alone.

Another dysfunctional function.