“Mom, I’m not trying to meet someone at one of these weddings.”
“Whyever not?”
“Because it’s not about me. I’m there to support my friends.”
“And your friends support you, that’s how it works. Everyone knows weddings are a wonderful place to meet people.”
I thought back to the singles table, where I had been placed, probably at my mother’s insistence, at my cousin Tina’s wedding. Everyone else in my family was at the same table together, whereas my table felt like the scene from Animal House where they keep introducing the pledges to the same losers over and over again.
“That was probably true when you were single, but it’s a little different now.”
She huffed again. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I am happy.”
“Are you? You go home to an empty apartment every night and sit there alone.”
My hackles rose. “Actually, I go home to my roommate, who’s one of my closest friends, and either hang out with her or go out with other friends. I’m not exactly sitting in the dark working on a hope chest.”
“That’s not a life. You need a family. It’s time.”
I opened my mouth to say what I wanted to say: that my birth family was currently a great example of why I didn’t want a family yet. I didn’t want to settle down and pop out three kids in the suburbs, then nag them until they got married and had their own kids. I didn’t want to be her.
But the words didn’t come out. They never seemed to with her. Which was probably for the best. And I understood that she meant well. It wasn’t that she wanted me to be her, she just didn’t understand that there were other definitions of happiness than hers.
Besides, my generation was the first one that really was finding a different life than the previous generations had. We didn’t have to get married and have kids in our twenties if we didn’t want to. For the non-independently wealthy of us, our careers kind of had to come first if we wanted any sense of financial security before we started those families. And while my parents were still happily married, I had seen enough couples who weren’t to know better than to settle for any of the guys I had met so far.
Was there a way to explain that to my mother that she could understand? No. I had tried before.
I looked at the clock. The proposal was due by the end of the day and I was only halfway through it. “Okay,” I said to keep the peace and get her off the phone. “I’ll try to meet someone.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.” She paused. “Now if you could also work on your sister about this maid of honor thing . . .”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Okay, okay, I love you.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
I pressed “End” and shook my head. She couldn’t help herself and was never going to change.
CHAPTER FIVE
From: Caryn Donaldson [[email protected]]
To: [bridesmaids]
Subject: Wedding newsletter volume 1
Date: September 24
Hi girls! Just thought I’d get a group email going so you all have each other’s contact info and so you can add my new email to your address books! Of course, it’ll change after the wedding to [email protected], so you can add that as well, but I’m going to use this one until then. I’ll still get emails to my old address, but I’d prefer you use this one for all wedding-related correspondence. Thanks!
Can you believe we only have a little under nine months until the wedding? There’s so much to do between now and then!
I’m going dress shopping the next three Saturdays, and I thought it would be fun if you all came with me and we made a day of it! I have an appointment at three boutiques at Tyson’s Corner this weekend, three in DC the weekend after, and four more in Maryland the third weekend. I’d love it if you came to all three, but just let me know what works with your schedules and I’ll make sure the salons know we’re coming. This is just for my dress. We’ll schedule another day to go look for your dresses!
Oh, and try to keep your weekends open in May. I’d like to do the shower and bachelorette separate weekends and we’ll need another weekend to figure out hair treatments, etc.
Yay! I’m so excited! Love you all!
—The future Mrs. Caryn Greene
The journalism major in me cringed at the exclamation points, but I smiled over my homemade sandwich. This was what made all of the scrimping and saving worth it. Seeing how excited Caryn was. Was an interim email address excessive? Yes. But I had never seen an email that screamed excitement like this in all the years I had known Caryn.