Post-Wedding Blues

In planning this wedding I specifically asked my friends to come and help out with set-up, food service, and tear-down in exchange for $50 (later raised to $100) and leftover booze.  What better deal for a struggling queer?  Untaxed cash and booze?  Hell yeah!  So, of course, my friends who love me made it out – my date, Puppy; my ex, Andrea; her brother; and my friend Kate, the founder of the queer femme burlesque troupe that made us all family.

During the wedding:
– I stood next to my sister at the altar, trying not to make faces while vows and speeches were made about how weddings are a sign of commitment and taking a relationship "to a more serious level".
– my friends busted their butts doing what they do so regularly – minimum wage food service.
– Puppy was "she"d and "her"d multiple times, often when it was inappropriate to stop and explain to the person doing it what they were doing.
– Puppy and I, publicly a bit affectionate, received curious stares through portions of the night
– Andrea and I busted a move on the dancefloor, the same way we do at the gay clubs, and had an audience of gawkers (bless my mom – she told me later that I’m a great dancer and that she wishes she could dance like me).
– my mom and I cut it up to "Dancing Queen" by ABBA
– guests left early because they were bored – while I had the best time of anyone there.
– I got progressively more drunk through the reception until at the end I was chugging wine out of bottles as we were finishing packing up outside (again, bless my mom – she actually had a sip herself, and being one of the very last people to leave told Puppy "Please take care of her," as she got in the cab).

As it stands now:
– I’m struggling with how much I’m currently completely turned off of weddings while last night a close friend informed us all at the bar that she and her girlfriend are getting married in September.
– I am deeply and profoundly appreciative for the space(s) in the queer community where I am able to find, meet, and connect with people like my friends, because they are amazing people and I’m blessed to have such progressive, loving, accepting people in my life.
– Despite the fact that I’m related to my brothers and sister, I’m more aware than before of a class divide that stands between us at this point in our lives.
– I’ve recognized that in order to find deeper peace within myself I have to delve more passionately and devotedly into my spirituality – a very personal and private process.
– I’ve hesitatingly acknowledged that I’m an alcoholic (albeit a functioning one), and that I have a drinking problem.  Binge drinking regularly does classify as alcoholism, as much as I’ve tried to convince myself otherwise.

Last night I arrived at the bar in a very masculine outfit, packing my strap-on under my baggy men’s jeans.  I had originally planned to show up in my bridesmaid’s dress and standing out – good thing I did the opposite because it was dead at the bar and I was decompressing from the entire wedding debacle.  I didn’t realize how much it had affected me until I arrived at the bar where both Kate and one of my lovers asked me how I was doing after the wedding.  I realized how profoundly the entire wedding had affected me, and suddenly my eyes were so open:

Me, standing there with my dick on under my manly bar outfit, looking at my friend Kate and my activist, passionate, gender-fucking lover who was handing me a drink (which I passed to Kate) as they laughed and talked.  I opened my phone and saw a picture from the wedding on my phone background – I was hurt, and immediately decided to change the picture.  Switching the phone to camera mode I took a photo of Kate and my lover licking each other’s faces at the bar and put it up as my new background.  Now it’s in my phone as a reminder of what matters to me in life.