another one bites the dust

i was going to write this post about guilt - specifically spending too-much-money guilt, as christmas/pre-christmas chicago trip where i bought shoes that were way too expensive (more on that later, as they are beautiful) totally kicked my bank account's ass - but i have another kind of guilt today to confess. the jealous-of-those-i-love guilt.

this is a new year's thing i'm trying to do - get these bad feelings out into the blogging world, which will somehow make me feel better, because maybe-just-maybe one of you is feeling how i feel. comrodary in numbers, or whatever. you know, one of the 10 or so people that reads this blog.

another friend is married. she's amazingly hilarious and the tallest girl i know. she used to get me my milk at the sorority house and once came over to my house senior year of college to rescue me when i "thought i heard something." it turned out to be the oven. i shared cookies with her in humble gratitude. but she's engaged, and i'll be honest, i thought i would go first. of course that's what i said about the last friend, and the friend before that. there are still a few people holding out, but i swear if they beat me...

see, this is the problem, that gnawing jealousy that makes me think i should be growing up, too. i'm going to be 25 in a few days. it's a scary age, mostly because i can't say "early 20s anymore." it's "mid-20s" now. mid-20s. i'm complaining about being in my TWENTIES. that is the level of sad desperation this jealousy causes me to fall to.

from what i hear, 30s are better. 40s are supposedly fun, too. it would be nice to not feel like such a fuck-up all the time, to actually not only know what i'm doing, but not care if i don't, feelings that i've also heard come with age. and i am so, so happy for my friend, who is lovely and kind and deserves a beautiful future, which i'm sure she has in front of her.

i am. seriously.

my cousin frankie

my cousin frankie, who i consider my best friend – she will be my matron of honor some day – is getting married this weekend. i never had a sister, unlike frankie, and I always considered her my sister. we lived an hour apart, but we were together a ton during my childhood. I spent a few days of spring break every year at her house. our slumber parties usually consisted of four of us snuggled in a bed together, me putting everyone to sleep with a made-up story.

once when we were watching oprah, she had several doctors that specialized in sex education on her show. one was the author of "what your mother never told you about sex." frankie and i immediately went out and bought it at borders, giggling the whole time, especially when the check-out guy said, "yeah, we usually sell a lot of these when oprah has the author on her show." we proceeded to read the book to each other poolside, with a magazine hiding the cover. for a few years we passed the book back and forth, until aunt cathy - frankie's mom - found it, we think, and threw it away.

another time we were in sanibel together and decided to put fake tattoos on our butts. frankie's was a lovely star shooting out of her crack. we took a picture to memorialize the event that i found years later, still laughing as i looked at our beautiful behinds.

we used to walk around in our bikinis to make the son of my grandmother's neighbor notice us.

i peed my pants in the movie rental store when frankie suggested a movie called "concealed weapon" for my brother - with a picture complete with a gun hidden in a woman's lacy stocking.

frankie found dozens of letters i had sent her when we were little, before even the land line phones were available to me. i usually told her stories about my snake or my school or dance lessons.

i always wanted to be frankie. i wanted to wear what she wore, do what she did. i'll never forget how happy i was that she was copying me when she decided to try flute lessons. she didn't last on the flute, but it was the fact that my heroine was emulating me that made me so happy.

we had endless shopping trips together, shared bottles of wine, made desserts out of a box that were the yummiest cakes or cookies or brownies. we spent holidays tucked into my grandparents' bed, watching parades and christmas movies that we had seen a thousand times. we laughed at the absurdity of our mothers, at ourselves when we were young, at the stupid things we had done in college. we called each other when we started working, lamenting how tired we were or how far away we lived. it figured the minute i moved to her hometown, she was 10 hours away in minneapolis, a day-long car ride, a $300 plane ticket. suddenly holidays were the highlight, if only because i got to see frankie. i always planned on naming a daughter after her, and accidentally told her that one evening after too much pinot grigio.

and now she's getting married, the first of the 12 grandkids to do so. and i love her husband-to-be. when i walked in his sparkling clean condo and had a rice krispie he made for us on the spot after frankie mentioned she was "hungry for dessert," i knew he was perfect. and, as my aunt cathy tipsily said to a party guest, they will make beautiful babies.

but first we all have to get through the wedding of the year. frankie will go on her honeymoon, and i'll go visit her in november, my married cousin, all grown up. it's how it should be.

dealing with things way beyond my maturity level

if it's meant to be, it will be.

i really, really fucking hate that god-awful cliche. mostly because it sounds like i have no control. and i have to have control. control and white wine = two of my best friends. when i don't have control, when i feel outside my comfort zone, when i start edging past the ability to schedule and label and categorize my various conflicts and problems, when i can't make a list on my pastel pink post-it note - that's when i start to spiral down into a pit of self-doubt and deprecation.

most of the reason i don't believe in fate and destiny and all that crap is it implies i have no control over the decisions that will lay out my life - that they're already decided and mapped out in some blueprint in the universe. i don't want to be some helpless person who has no control over her future, even if i am some helpless person with no control over my future. i know i can't predict or plan or even guess what happens next. but i would rather fool myself into thinking it's possible, that maybe, just maybe all my dreams and hopes will come true, and all my fears and doubts will just be dust in the wind.

a wedding

one of my very best friends and the person i consider a sister has now been married for 24 hours. after her name, her husband's name and the pastor's name, i got to sign the marriage license as a witness. then i got to walk down the aisle and look at her husband's face when he saw his bride for the first time. i had made it through the rehearsal (that took THREE HOURS!!!), dinner, giving shea a book of pictures and that included a very emotional personal letter to her, seeing her with her hair done, seeing her in her dress, seeing her cry over pretty much everything, and the entire ceremony - and then another bridesmaid and good friend, Meredith, had to go sing this song, and I lost it. everyone had already cried, and i had to go have my moment on the altar in front of 300 people - with the only tissue i had brought stuck down my cleavage. i thought i hid the whole thing really well until people started recognizing me at the reception as "that bridesmaid that started balling."

but all was beautiful and well, even the speech, which as co-maid-of-honor, i had to give, with molly's help. i held it together until the very, very end, when i had to say good bye to shea. stupid, really, because i was only saying good bye to her until i saw her again, which will probably be very soon, considering we live an hour away.

but i lost it. again. only this time, i couldn't stop crying for 30 minutes. it may have had something to do with the six cranberry and vodkas i had been secretly drinking during the supposed "dry" reception, but it also had to do with the fact that shea is all growed up, and i am about to burst with love and happiness for her. every time i even heard her name at the end of the night, i would start sobbing. i am so, so lucky to share the day with her and be a part of her life. and all i could think about was how much i love her husband (they're perfect - seriously) and how happy they're going to be together. that's rare and precious, that love that makes even the strongest women of steel cry because it's so real and powerful and makes me believe that it's possible for anyone, no matter what. and i am so, so happy shea and ben have found it and each other. it was an amazing wedding and an amazing weekend, though i think after three in a row, i need about a month to recover.