It keeps getting harder and easier.
.....
Weddings make people oogy, and holy cow, my sister is married now! Consider me oogy.
Everyone looked great, my mom looked so beautiful. My sister would be pissed to read this, but as they were doing her hair and everything, she looked like Shirley Temple sitting in the chair. Something about wedding dresses makes the girls in my family look like they are twelve again.
The mother of the groom caught the bouquet, and handed it off to my third cousin once removed by marriage, who was gartered by my other distantly marriage-related cousin's adopted daughter's boyfriend. She and my dad danced to Stevie Wonder's "Don't you worry 'bout a thing."
After it was over, and we'd come back to my parents' house to make an appearance at the "after-party," I sat in the car and started crying for no reason. Not emotional overflow, the kind of quiet crying where you just seep out the sides and smile at how silly you are. No. This was face scrunched, mouth-breathing, explosive crying, interspersed with frustrated laughter when I attempted to contain myself.
I don't even know why, maybe just that she was getting ready to drive away from my parents house for real this time. Never mind that she hasn't lived there for six months, or that I haven't really for nearly seven years. Never mind that her apartment is 10 minutes from our childhood home, and that she cooks breakfast for my parents every Sunday morning.
It's just different.
.....
Every time I leave, I feel like a traitor. Somehow though, we keep getting stronger.