Struck

Tonight I went to the wedding of a girl I've known my entire life. She was the kind of family member who wasn't actually related to me in any sort of way but was always referred to as a cousin. I remember me and my sister spending the night at her house in sleeping bags watching Duck Tales (Does anyone else remember that? I fucking loved that shit.) I remember going on vacations with her, and spending every fourth of July in her pool. We used to play a game where we would sink to the bottom of the deep end and tried to see who could stay there for the longest. She almost always won. I never forgave her for that until now. It seems like so much time has passed since then, but she's only seventeen on her wedding day. She literally had to have her parents sign a permission slip to get married which is completely ludicrous. She should have looked so much older in her wedding dress, but the lacy edges only proved to make her look younger. I hadn't seen her in so long that when I leaned in to hug her, and tell her congratulations I remembered how much she was wrapped up in my childhood. As I saw her pose for photos with her new husband I realized how weddings are all about posing the way people want you to. I wondered how people figure out to stop posing, and to start living their new lives together. The whole night really made me wonder. Am I ever going to get to go through that? Am I ever going to get married, and have kids, who will one day have childhood friends that they will eventually go to the weddings of having the same questions? I hope so. God, I hope so.