That's the way weddings-not love- goes

This is hard for me. I wish I could write about it honestly but I couldn't do that without hurting important people in my life. Who knew weddings could be so difficult even after you're married. It's been a series of episodes to an ongoing saga for about a year now. Four weddings and a funeral. For real. And it's no comedy.

I always wanted to believe that weddings couldn't possibly be as fraught with issues as people claim. I believed that people create their own drama. For as long as I can recall, I considered myself quite the realist, never falling pray to any airy fairy notions of romance. Not the tears for snotty speeches or soppy movies type of girl. Well our wedding was a clear demonstration of how much I really have romanticsed this part of my life, all of my life. Sadly the real in my head and the reality we experienced were poles apart. 

I don't know how people even consider doing this more than once. Maybe it's like having babies, apparently you eventually forget the pain.

Being modernly bred has quite a number of disadvantages when you live in country that is still very rooted in culture and tradition because you are forced to find a balance between the two. Something people take for granted, believing its easily achieved. My issue with anything traditional in a modern society is the lack of follow through. People have such strong desires to remain connected to their roots, the place where it all began, so we attempt to regurgitate traditions through practices passed down from ancestor to ancestor. We simultaneously want to filter the practices through the sieves of our modern day lives, dotted with feminism, opinion, personal experience, marriage and divorce, religion and distance to name but a few of the influences. The most problematic filter is probably a desire use tradition in an attempt to dictate in spaces where you should not. But this is human nature, if it weren't tradition there would be another element to distort.

As a result, of many many varied tales, opinions, warped messages, resistance and most importantly history, we have had 3 weddings, a funeral between 1 and 2, and we are in the process of negotiating a forth.   

My husband and I are taxed. Emotionally worn out. In an effort to keep all parties happy, we choose to bite our tongues and to speak up, we choose to transfer some messages and not others, we choose to fight with one another rather than those we are trying to protect. In an effort to retain some semblance of peace between three families who know too much about one another and yet not near enough, we choose to recognise the love that everybody wants to believe they are fighting for and cast a blind eye to the hurt they inflict in trying to show that they love the most. We now have to choose to allow a self mending period where everyone who stepped down, back, sideways and out of the way can step forward and have their hurt acknowledged. Because even though no one thinks it matters anymore, that they have done their part and will do no more, that they will stay in their lane and speak only when spoken to, it is this part that matters most. This part that is the marriage which should have brought three families together and instead created a gaping wound, that will continue to be infected and seep its horrid bile into our forever.

To the naked eye, we have had three beautiful weddings. We may have a forth. If only our futures were determined by what the naked eye observes. Weddings are not yours. It is only for you to navigate a road with the least speed bumps. It is only for you to use the advanced option to produce one result that reflects everyone's personal filters. And on your day (any of the 3 or 4) you can feel love in the general vicinity and hopefully one of those days resemble the romance from your canvas.