Thursday, June 01, 2006

First wedding of the year

Tomorrow I'm headed out to attend my good friend's wedding. Pisces and I have been friends since junior high school. We attended different universities, and then she moved nearby when she came to grad school. In fact, Pisces is the reason I have many of the friends I spend time with today. Everyone always enjoyed her witty perspective and blunt remarks. She has etiquette but won't take anyone's crap.

We've seen each other go through a lot. I've learned how she felt below myself and other classmates who lived in the "richer" neighborhood back in high school. These revelations always surprised me because I never considered my family to be better off and always considered her neighborhood about the same. From my perspective, I always felt like the inferior student because I wasn't white and knew I'd always be picked second to her for club leadership roles. We've been through plenty of relationship ups and downs.

She moved away about three years ago, oh, maybe almost four now. It was her first time living outside of California. I felt like to kept in touch pretty regularly while we lived in the same place. The first year she moved to the East Coast I enjoyed hearing her regular tales of the culture shock and challenges of the brutal winters she endured.

Frankly, and sadly, I feel like we've grown apart the past few years. I can't sense what she thinks of me. Although Pisces will share details of her life with me, and I don't have a very good sense of what emotions she's dealing with. There's no drama (okay, that's not a bad thing but everyone has something right?). Last year, she all but disappeared in the spring. Over five-month period, she failed to respond to two phone calls and three e-mails. I had to express serious concern before she took a moment to respond. She had just been so busy with her new condo that she had neglected to tell me (and others of us in CA)? I know we can all be bad about disappearing, but that just seemed odd. We still meet up every Christmas for lunch while visiting our folks. I wonder if that will change now. Still, she will always be a good friend.

She is marrying a fellow she met through Hrmny more than two years ago. Peter sounds like a good guy from what she's told me, but I've never met him. I'm not even sure I could tell you what Pisces' attitude was towards dating in general when she first met him. I'm anxious to see him in person.

I sense her attitude towards dating and marriage has changed in the past five years. Her heart was broken by Vintage just before she moved away. I know she believed in her heart they'd get married. While she loves Peter, her attitude seems a bit reserved. I would best describe her explanations as practical.

As much as Pisces adores her nieces, she's not sure she wants children. As an academic, I think she feels somewhat constrained by her career in her ability to live where she wants and have a family. Medically speaking, pregnancy could also be complicated for her for reasons I won't go into. Plus, Peter had testicular cancer when he was younger. He's not sure he can produce children. I just don't get the sense from her that they're interested in finding or exploring solutions. Maybe she's fine rather than resigned. Sometimes find her attitude too nonchalant. Perhaps she's made her peace with the situation. It's just that growing up, I wouldn't have guess this choice from her.

It's going to be a small wedding, predominantly family. I'm happy that I'll be there to share in her joy.

Uh... just one little dilemna. Originally, Pisces had stated that she and Peter will be around for the week after the wedding and implied that she would spend time with folks staying extra days. My ticket currently has me flying back on Monday evening, but now there are flights for Sunday evening that I could switch to without penalty.

Earlier this week, Pisces let me know that Sunday is out. Monday is a maybe. Frankly, if I don't get to see her, I'd rather not spend a day of vacation away from home. Besides, I have a tight project timeline and really could use that additional day at work. But what am I to do? I can't force her to commit, certainly the relatives come first. I have no other friends to visit while I'm there. Part of me just wants to come back since there's no guarantee I will see her. Am I being selfish? Is spending maybe a few hours with Pisces worth it?

5 comments:

teahouse said...

Yeah, it's hard to get someone to commit to something like that during their wedding weekend. If I were you, and you really feel better coming back earlier, I'd do that. Don't sit around waiting - chances are, she'll be so caught up in everything that hanging out with you won't be practical. You can catch up with her later, after the dust settles.

zerodoll said...

i agree with teahouse, most likely she'll be so busy with family stuff that she won't have much free time and you'll be bummed that you spent a vacation day there for nothing.

Anna May Won't said...

ditto re: what thb and zerodoll said. i think she'll definitely be caught up in post-wedding/family stuff, and you shouldn't have to sit around waiting, esp when you have work to do.

Pandax said...

Thanks, I know it's probably the best idea. I guess I just feel bad since I already said I'd be around Monday. It'll also be good not to impose an extra day on my friend's friends who were kind enough to let me sleep there.

Teahouse... what happened to your blog's comments?

Pandax said...

Whoops, never mind, the comments are there now. Must have been some weird glitch.