Weddings are not my thing

My cousin’s wedding is this weekend and I’m sadly not looking forward to it.   This will be the third wedding this year I’m attending and the fifth this year I was invited to.  There are two more, one I’ll go to and one I won’t be able to.  Weddings always make me feel so inadequate and lonely.  I want to find someone and get serious and settle down.  Even if I had a serious, steady – ANY – boyfriend, I would feel so much better.  At least someone to put my arm through and dance with and distract me from the annoyances weddings bring out in me.  Thankfully, I’m able to put on a pretty good smile and just be happy for the couple.  The day is about them, not me, and I just need to keep reminding myself of that.

The complications with this particular wedding comes because its a family wedding.  There will be drama.  There always is drama.  My parents are getting into town sometime in the next hour and I’ve decided to own up to the fact that I’m not going back to school next semester to them.  Maybe doing it over the phone would have been better, but I haven’t told them yet and I just don’t feel like keeping it from them anymore.  I’m looking for employment (of any kind) and trying to figure out my next steps.  I’m not sure that anything would be really different a year from now.  I’d still be looking for a job and just in twice as much debt as I am now.  I want to make some money.  I want to have something in my bank account more than school loan funds.  I do not want to move back home.  I do not want to go back to… well, anything.  I want to move forward and go.  I heard back from a church that I applied to in Indiana that they are going to pass on hiring me.  It was a long-shot, but I can’t say I didn’t try.

I’m really not sure how this is going to go over with my parents and I don’t know if telling them before or after the wedding itself would be better.  I’m just sick of keeping it from them.  I don’t need help, at least not yet.  And I don’t know what I’ll do in August if I’m still jobless.  Cause at that point, I’ll be homeless too.  I feel if I tell them now what’s going on, they might have some good advice and could help me form a "what happens if I don’t get a job" plan.  Cause that is something I do not have.  I know if I needed a place to stay for a few weeks, even a month, I could stay with Rebecca or her parents.  They’ve all said as much.  But I do not want to move in with someone like that without a move-out plan in place.  I don’t want it for them or for me.  If its a matter of just saving a tiny bit more to get an apartment, or waiting for an apartment to open up, thats one thing.  Its an entirely different idea if I’m a jobless bum with no future.

My apartment is a disaster and I was going to stay up last night and clean.  But I had a headache when I got back from dinner with Rebecca and I decided sleeping would be a better idea.  That only sort of worked, cause I woke up with a headache and nausea.  Third morning that has happened.  If it was a possibility, I’d be afraid it was morning sickness and pregnancy.  But thankfully, I’m missing a key component (sex) of that being the case, so I know its not.  But it destroys my mornings because I’m miserable and don’t want to move or do anything productive.  So now my parents arrive in 30 minutes and the place is horrible.  My cousins are coming tomorrow and at least one of them is staying with me so it has to be clean by then.

Tonight is the bachelorette party and if there is anything I hate more than weddings, its the bachelorette party.  My cousin has prepared at least 5 games for us to play, there’s going to be a "dance party" and opening presents.  Seriously, it sounds more complex than most of my birthday parties.  And I hate party games.  I’m realizing I’m a lot like my dad in the aspect.  There are going to be 20 girls there, and I’ll only know 3 of them – including the bride.  I’m just not in the mood to hang out with a bunch of wedding-crazy girls.

To be clear, the wedding service itself doesn’t bother me all that much.  Its the reception and partying afterwards I don’t want to do.  There’s going to be drama.  I just know it.  And yesterday, I realized there was going to be a bit more than even I expected.  Its a long story, but my uncle is not allowed to leave his state for the wedding.  He was arrested, released and is awaiting his hearing or pre-trial or whatever.  That whole situation in of itself will be a cause for drama.  What will make it worse is the fact that my parents did not stop to see him on their drive out here.  My uncle is too kind to point out how cruel and wrong that is.  But my grandmother will not be.  My father is the only sibling who has not gone to visit or called his brother since this whole incident started in November.  Granted, he lives the furthest away and has a job that is hardest to get away from.  But he’s driving right past him.  I asked at one point if my parents would be stopping and my mother said probably not.  I didn’t push it, cause I didn’t stop when I drove out to NY and back either.  I was on a tighter time table, but still.  I purposely didn’t stop and made the time table that way.

My dad suffers a bit from the older brother syndrome from the Prodigal Son.  There’s a story in the Bible of two sons.  The younger son took his inheritance and left his family and… well, basically screwed up.  He returned home, dirty and penniless, begging forgiveness.  The father immediately forgave him and took him back, throwing a huge party.  The older son felt slighted.  He had never betrayed or abandoned his father.  He had been the good and dutiful son.  Why should his worthless little brother get away with all that?  Now my uncle didn’t take his inheritance, but he did leave his parents and siblings all behind the day he turned eighteen.  Only a few years ago did he "return to the fold" so to speak.  My grandmother forgave him and just doted on him.  There was a moment during my grandfather’s funeral where I really saw how my father felt, and how he was treated.  My dad told a PG joke, a little dirty, but really nothing worse than a jr. high kid might tell.  My grandmother got really mad at him.  Minutes later, my uncle told an X-rated joke.  It had me blushing!  And she just laughed and swatted at his shoulder.  Now I know she was going through her grief and yadda yadda yadda.  But that is a snippet of how differently she treats them.  Kevin can do no wrong now.  My dad can never seem to be good enough.  At least I know thats how he feels.  And my grandmother is not tactful enough, or aware enough, to make him feel better.  Not that he would ever admit it, but I know that he kinda feels Kevin is getting what he deserves.

Anyways – I can completely understand my dad not wanting to see Kevin.  There is the whole legal side of it all, which is another side of it all.  But even without all that, I can still understand my dad.  I’m the one who really really really wants to dye her hair purple just to piss off her grandmother.  I think it would be funny.  But I’m attempting to behave.

Ugh.  They are here.

I need a job.