All Of Our Moments Have Just Become Ailments.

I don’t talk to my mom. I haven’t for some time. And I don’t expect the events of Saturday to ever transpire again, which is to say this was my one and only chance to be a bridesmaid in my dad’s wedding because I don’t believe my dad will ever get married again. Instead of celebrating the way I should have, however, I spent the last two hours of my dad’s wedding sobbing inconsolably at the bar, pouring my own double shots of whiskey while my twelve year old nephew’s date told me “he isn’t worth it.”

That’s how the night ended. It started beautifully but the fact of the matter is that right now, when I think about my dad’s wedding, I don’t think about the gorgeous reception hall or the awesome open bar or how beautiful I looked or how proud I was that I didn’t fall whilst walking down the aisle in four inch heels or how awesome my daddy-daughter dance to “It’s Rainin’ Men” was. Instead, what I think of is the moment my wedding date, someone I considered one of my very best friends, called me and told me he wasn’t coming.

I’d never been heartbroken before. And I’d never been humiliated either. At least not like that. My phone started to buzz in my pocket and I rushed to the theater where, only hours beforehand, my dad and Laura had gotten married. I answered the phone excitedly, expecting him to tell me he was almost here or maybe that he’d gotten lost… Instead, he told me he wasn’t coming. And I went from being the most gorgeous looking girl in the room to being the sobbing bridesmaid who got stood up at her own dad’s wedding.

In that moment, I felt completely insignificant. I’ve been a damn good friend to this guy and I know he’ll never care as much about me as I do about him but that moment, that complete crushing moment of finding out I was going to be spending my dad’s wedding alone, I felt as if the exact magnitude of my insignificance was confirmed.

And at my dad’s wedding, no less.

The funny thing was that things had been going really good up until that moment, not just at the wedding, but in life in general. And people can comfort me all they want, and they can try to cheer me up, and my would-have-been-wedding-date can try to make it up to me every day but the fact of the matter is that my dad will never get married again. And I’ll never be a bridesmaid in a more important wedding. Hell, I will never look more beautiful than I did that night. And I ended up spending it sobbing until I’d cried off the majority of my perfectly applied make up, being hugged by a twelve year old because she was the only person sober enough to notice something was wrong, while taking shot after shot of Jack Daniel’s because I did not want to be sober enough to remember this in the morning.

The reception ended with my dad and his new wife waiting at the bar with me to make sure I had a ride back to Ann Arbor. My dad and Laura ended up spending the majority of the next day – Their first day as husband and wife – texting and calling me to make sure I was holding up okay. I feel like I ruined my dad’s wedding. And I have that guilt to add on top of the humiliation and disappointment and crushing heartbreak that I already feel.

It’s almost funny how good things were going up until that point.

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