I Do

I went to my first wedding as a sober person this weekend.

It was.....OK.

My sister-in-law got married, we were all in the wedding. By all I mean me, husband, and kiddos. Which meant that I had the rehearsal and the reception to scurry around in my head about. And that I had lots of back up.

It's interesting being sober at drinky events. I was sort of at loose ends for both the rehearsal dinner and the reception: kiddos to eyeball, not my gig so basically a room full of strangers which is not my very favorite, husband here and there trying to be the brother of the bride and make sure his lovely sober wife doesn't flake out.

There was a moment a few hours into the reception where I almost started bawling right there into my donuts. There were fat tears, all ready to fall.

Thankfully right then it was time for the toast.

Husband took care of me and made sure I had sparkling cider. We moved to the head table, each of us with one of our boys in our laps. The best man made a funny speech,  my youngest slurped my cider, (which made me chuckle, I'm sure some folks raised an eyebrow at that!) and I remembered to feel the love and forget to be all wound up. Remembered that no one really cared what I was doing, or not doing. And that I was doing just fine.

I guess the worst and best part was all the feeling- you know how weddings are. You feel sentimental, and overwhelmed. Joyous. You miss the people who aren't there- you can see the holes in the family. There's a load of reflection, and emotion. Tiny little things go wrong, and the stress stress stress of getting it all right, and on time. Talk about overload! No wonder people drink so much at these things. I think maybe instead of just a reception weddings should have an optional gentle yoga class right after so people can just have a minute to breathe.

Maybe no one would even need a drink if we did that.

I'll tell you what I didn't miss: the hangovers that go along with a celebratory weekend. Like, here I am. Monday morning. Fresh as a sweetgrass flower, ready for the world. A little travel weary, but not glued to the bed for the next day or so trying to recover from all the (ahem) ...fun. Not puzzling over what I might have said to Aunt Louise after seven gin and tonics. Not feeling embarrassed because we came home late and were smoking in the driveway. Not ashamed of anything I did, not one little thing at all.