With This Dance, I Thee Wed…(Part Two)

Yesterday, I took aim at the JK Wedding Entrance Dance with a critical eye poking through the telescopic site of my Hate Rifle. I didn’t intend for the tone to come across quite as caustic as it apparently did, although I did mean everything I said. Well, mostly…

In part two of my Jill and Kevin tirade, I want to expose the hypocrisy behind my words and maybe smooth over some of the rougher bits of part one. I admit that I am looking at the whole dancing wedding affair through disillusioned-colored glasses and, with today’s essay, I hope to explain why I wrote what I did in part one. Yesterday, I revealed that I have been married before (for those who didn’t already know), but I did not divulge the circumstance surrounding my absent-minded walk down the aisle. To set the record straight – and to put all my cards on the table – I have to confess that I, myself had a frivolous wedding, although I didn’t know it at the time.

First, some backstory. I grew up taking family vacations to Walt Disney World in Florida, so I have many happy memories of the place that I wanted to share with my then-girlfriend way back in 2001. She loved it, and we went back again a year later. I’d spent some time before we left, working with the WDW staff to secure a location inside one of the parks to be the site of a lavish, fairy tale proposal. I popped the question, she said yes, and another year passed before we were back in Florida and getting married at the place where (I thought) we fell in love. Yes, I got married in Disneyworld. (And I called Jill and Kevin’s wedding silly. Nice to meet you, kettle. I’m pot!)

Looking back now, I can see the frivolity of a Cinderella Mouse House wedding, but things were very different then. It was romantic and sweet and perfect. I was giving my blushing bride the gift of a fairy tale wedding, complete with a happily ever after that would last forever. What I didn’t know at the time, of course, was that she was merely enjoying the ride. And, once things started getting a little bumpy, she hopped into another car…and then another one…and another one…and another one…

While the Disney-centric, fairy tale extravaganza was something that I thought was special and would be a lasting memory for both of us to share for years to come, it was, in fact, simply a blanket of romantic camouflage draped a broken and one-sided relationship that should have never happened in the first place. If I hadn’t been so caught up in planning the perfect storybook proposal and, later, the quintessential fairy tale wedding, maybe I would have seen her for who she was, rather than who I hoped she would be. Maybe if she hadn’t been dazzled and distracted by the spectacle, she would have wandered off to nibble on the greener grass of other pastures a lot sooner than she did, preventing me years of misery and regret. Maybe we would have never been married at all. Oh, if only!

But, as it happened, we did say our vows and we did get married. It just turned out that, while I was taking vows that I believed sacred and permanent, she was just reciting lines from a script she was playing out in her own mind. They didn’t have any significance or meaning to her, existing instead as the simple and transient dialog of an imagined movie about her life, wherein she is the star and her supporting cast is as interchangeable and replaceable as her increasingly gaudy costume changes. It was all a grand deception, my marriage – a hideous charade in which we both took part. I willingly deceived myself with the belief that what we were doing was serious and real and permanent, and she lied to both of us in her delusion that she could ever change who she was. Granted, she tried to change. In fact, she prided herself on idolizing and mimicking Madonna’s (!) ability to reinvent herself, year after year. In practice, at least this far removed from any superstar spotlights, all I eventually saw in my ex-wife was a sad, self-loathing little girl who hated what she saw in the mirror, but who lacks the will or character to change the reflection. Instead, she just does a quick wardrobe change and recasts all the players on her life’s stage. She concocts a new script in her mind to accommodate The New Her and Her New Him, and she sets off once more to try again, and maybe get it right this time…

And that’s about the long and short of it, friends. I don’t want to dwell on her or my Huge Mistake any longer today, as I’ve devoted enough of my energies to that sort of drivel in the past. I mention her here only to serve as reference for my current outlook towards the fugacious nature of so many recent marriages, and so you’ll understand where I’m coming from when I talk so strongly about why marriage is a serious business that should be taken seriously, with serious seriousness!

Anyway, my words to Jill and Kevin were motivated not out of hate or spite. They were coming from a place of warning and caution, and I’d hoped to point out some of the potholes they might face along the way on their journey together down the highways and byways of married life. I wanted to prepare them for the hard-packed dirt of reality that awaits them at the bottom of their inevitable long, skydive fall from the high they’re enjoying now. Most marriages seem to disintegrate somewhere around the fifth anniversary these days, (the Seven Year Itch having been trimmed down by a couple of years, presumably as a result of technology making cheating easier and more efficient). Coming down from the infatuation-based high of the newlywed years is a hard enough thing for any couple to endure, but when it’s compounded by a unique wedding that scoops you up and takes you soaring through the atmosphere well above the Kármán line, it’s a very, very, very long way down. Without advance warning and a little heat shielding, you’ll burn up on re-entry and your marriage will disintegrate long before you make it to a gentle, gliding touchdown at Cape Canaveral.

So, that’s all I was doing. I was warning Jill and Kevin about the dangers that lie ahead, and preparing them for unexpected things. They happened to me, and I didn’t see them coming until it was too late. Maybe, if someone points out some of the bumps along on the ragged road ahead of them, a newly married couple can find a way to navigate past them that doesn’t send one or both spouses seeking smoother rides in newer vehicles. Maybe.

P.S. – I know that I put my proposal to Brittany on YouTube. I didn’t want to, though. Originally, I hosted the video locally, right here on Coquetting Tarradiddles. Unfortunately, my simple solution proved too lightweight to endure the bandwidth demands of the site, so I was forced to seek a beefier solution. YouTube was the obvious choice, so I uploaded the video there and embedded it back here. So you see, my hypocrisy is plain and obvious, although not without its limits. I didn’t expect my proposal to ever become a media sensation, and it didn’t. It’s far too geeky and niche to be interesting to anyone who isn’t already interested in it. Still, I did, in my own way, exactly what I’m fussing at Jill and Kevin for having done themselves, and I should be the one to draw attention to that fact. Hey, at least I’m honest about my hypocrisy – which probably says a lot more about my character than I’d like it to, although I did always have a strange and special fascination with Thomas Jefferson…

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

Humor | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

Have you ever lived through an experience that was so humiliating that you wanted to die, but when you tell it to all your friends, they can't stop laughing?

Have you ever made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you're still living with the hilarious consequences years later?

If so, then grab a snack, get comfortable, and prepare to have all of your own poor life choices seem just a little bit more bearable.

You're welcome.

Short Stories
Available now from the following retailers

The nine stories of rage and sadness collected here range from the most intimate of human experiences to the wildest realms of magic and fantasy. The first story is a violent gut-punch to the soul, and the rest of them just hit harder from there.

Those who tough it out will find a book filled with as much hope as despair, a constant contradiction pulling you from one extreme to another.

Life might knock us down, over and over, and will the beat the ever-loving snot out of us from the time we're old enough to give it attitude until the day we finally let it win and stop getting up.

Always get back up.

Gaming | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

This isn't just a book. It's a portal to other worlds where there be magic and dragons and hilarious pirates. Okay, not really. But this book is about those portals, except they're called video games.

The Life Bytes series of books take a deep dive into one man's personal journey through childhood into kinda/sorta being a responsible, competent adult as told through the magical lens of whatever video games he was playing at the time.

Part One starts way back in 1975 and meanders down various digital pathways until, oh, around about 1993 or so.

If you're feeling nostalgic for the early days of gaming or if you just want to understand why the gamer in your life loves this hobby so much, take a seat in your favorite comfy chair and crack this bad boy open.

I'll try to not be boring.

Horror
Available now from the following retailers

What you are about to read is not a story. There is no beginning, middle, or end.

What follows is nothing more than a series of journal entries involving shadow people, sleep paralysis, and crippling fear. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t follow story logic, and nothing works out well in the end.

You've been warned.