dallas bound

in a few days i fly to dallas to see one of my favorite people in the world get married. i will be joined by two of my other favorite people in the world and together we will hold hands and dance and cry and laugh and drink and eat and speak and think and feel. definitely feel. already i almost feel too much.

i remember the first time i met e's fiancee. i even remember the very start of the crush, when all she could do was hope from afar. i remember the clear drive i felt to get to know him and the lengths i would go to to hang out with them long before they ever became a couple. sometimes these lengths included hijacking his meal from the microwave, bringing it outside to e's car {they were housemates at the time} and getting him to join us in the concert of music her speakers were blasting into the cavern of her SUV named henry. sometimes it was collaborating with e on a gift for his birthday when she was too shy to give on her own. sometimes it was front row seats at concerts we could all go to together. for the record, i was a very good wingman.

and the years have passed since then, since they've gotten together and begun to shape what their lives look like connected. and while their histories i hold so gently in my hards are not really mine to tell, what i can share, what is all my own to savor and name, is the gratitude, the overwhelming gratitude that i got to have a front row seat from the moment they entered each other's lives. the very moment.

and i try not to think about how someone else will sit in my front row seat to the stories that unfold after we no longer share the same region of the country. and someone else will be there for the long years of their children's lives and beyond. but i will be there in spirit and i will console myself that i was there in the beginning. and to be exact, it started before the beginning when this relationship was just something for e to dream about, when i was encouraging her with the words from bjork's song i miss you {but i haven't met you yet...so special but it hasn't happened yet}.

and the ghosts of all the hope i poured into her so many years ago are wraithing up to me, slipping invisibly through my skin to curl tightly around my heart, appearing suddenly out of thin air, surprising me late into in the night. their presence is exhausting and endless and i'm not quite sure what to do with them, but in the meantime, i get a few days to slow down and take pause, to honor and bless their new journey and to put on a pretty dress, have my hair and nails and have an incredible time celebrating with quite a few of the best people i know.


to be continued...