Weddings.

Ah, how we love weddings.

I often wonder why happy tears are shed at weddings. Is it because people are so enamored with the romance of the vows? Is it because they have fond memories of their own young love, new and fresh?

I need to reminisce a moment about my own wedding. It was fantastic. Her parents threw it for us. We custom-designed it so our guests would have fun and something to talk about. We wanted it to be memorable.

I remember one particular moment when I called our wedding a “party” one too many times and noticed the annoyance on her face.

I didn’t really understand exactly why this was until much later, after we’d been married a while. It was because she thought I was somehow demeaning the importance of that day.

My insensitive use of words not withstanding, the reason I called it a party was because of a desperate attempt to avoid developing a dependence upon the feelings of our wedding day; I wanted it to be a blank slate for our future, not a pre-loaded template with which to fill in the blanks.

The wedding should not, and cannot, define the marriage.

Why?

[…]

Our daughter is a tough cookie to raise. She’s stubborn, strong-willed, ritualistic, inflexible, self-centered, and kind of a brat.

Of course, she’s 3. So what can you do?

I find myself strategizing to understand better how to change her, to mold her into the person I think she should be.

In those moments of pure frustration, I wonder why she isn’t more like my sister or I was, and how we were with our parents. I just keep thinking, when will it be like it was for us?

Then a verse crossed my mind…

[…]