They announced their engagement in the group chat six months ago, and their other friends got invitations two months ago.Ididn’t get one. But everyone else gushed about how pretty and perfect the invites were. Again,totallysupport them and their choices, even the choice to not invite me.
So their wedding is not “news”. I’ve just been choosing not to talk about it. Or think about it. Because it didn’t concern me.
At least, until I got the mail yesterday.
“You know, the Jacobsons didn’t want to invite us?” Mom tsks again, this time in disgust. My parents and Matt’s parents (despite being next-door neighbors since Matt and I were in diapers) do not get along. The Jacobsons aren’t bad people, but they’re a little obsessed with normalcy. And that’s not my family. Allie—all five-foot-two, feminine, sweet, blonde, and painfully straight—is going to be a much better daughter-in-law than my queer, trans-masc ass ever would have been.
Love that for them.
“Mattie and Allie hand-delivered us an invite when they came over for Family Friday Game Night, since the other one had gotten ‘lost in the mail,’” Mom scoffs. “Sounds like someone made damnsureit got lost in the mail. Allie said they were sending you another one too, since they hadn’t gotten your RSVP either. Did you get it?”
Boy, did I! The blush envelope, perfectly lovely and traditional with eucalyptus leaves, woven texture, gold accents and so sosopink, has been burning a hole in my brain since it arrived yesterday.
“I’ll have to check the mail,” I lie as I stare the damn thing down, desperate to avoid answering the inevitable question of whether or not I’ll attend. “Are you gonna go?”
Mom sighs. “No. Your father and I talked about it, and we still have to live next door to the Jacobsons. Mattie hinted that his parents didn’t know we were invited, and frankly, we just came to a truce about the chickens. I don’t want to get them riled up again. Your father almost quit Facebook because of her passive-aggressive bullshit in the Solberg Townie group. And you know he loves his Facebook.”
My father does love his Facebook. Luckily for bird-watching groups, instead of the usual things middle-aged dads love Facebook for.
“I invented some excuse about a vacation, so now we’re road-tripping to New Mexico to check some wildlife refuge off your father’s bucket list. He wants to see a roadrunner!”
Well, if my parents aren’t going, maybe I could safely open the envelope. Just to RSVP no. Because I’m not supposed to go to their wedding. I’m the ex. Exes don’t go to weddings. Even if they’ve been best friends since they were five. Or roommates since freshman year, who clicked on a soulmate-level of clicking.
Admittedly, it hurt, not getting an invite when everyone else did. Far worse than I expected it to. I thought my happiness for the two people I love most in the world (my parents excluded)—and who loved me more than anyone (again, other than my parents)—would outweigh the bitterness of them starting a life together.
Because I always imagined that their life would still include me.
Even though I know I’m not meant for them. Matt knew it. Allie knew it. But I was the one in denial. Matt made thatdecision for us. Now he and Allie have a life that’s theirs, even though Ialwaysmade room for Allie in the life I had with Matt.
But I’ve processed and accepted their choices. I support them and their relationship, and I wish them nothing but love and light and happiness.
“You should still go though!”
“What?” That’s not what Mom was supposed to say.
“You should go!” Mom says with forced nonchalance. “They’re your best friends! It would mean a lot if you went. I know things have been awkward since… Well, you know.”
Since my boyfriend of eight years broke up with me and almost immediately started dating my best friend? Yeah, it’s been awkward.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to make their wedding awkward.” I shrug, fighting the urge to hug myself. More so, I don’t want to feel awkward at their wedding. All of their guests my age are Matt’s friends, a few Allie’s. None of Matt’s friends have bothered to keep in touch, unless not kicking me out of their group chat counts as keeping in touch. To Allie’s friends, I was just her weird and quiet roommate, or worse, their professor’s kid.
“Blakey-poo,youwon’t make their wedding awkward.Their familiesare going to make it awkward! Mattie is like a son to us, but boy, I am really glad you’re not marrying into that family. You dodged a fucking bullet!” Mom sighs dramatically. “If I didn’t think they’d clutch their pearls so hard they’d choke, I would give them some of our fun candy in a heartbeat. I’ve never met anyone who likes having a stick up their ass as much as the Jacobsons do.”
My parent’s “fun candies” are psilocybin chocolates Mom gets from one of her students at Sigurdsson College. Dad’s homegrown strain of weed, perfected over decades to help Dad manage his pain and Mom’s anxiety, is popular with the Siggys.As a philosophy professor (obviously tenured), Mom believes it’s safer to supply the student body with something trustworthy, so they don’t turn to shadier sources. She barters instead of selling, and only off-campus, as if that makes it somehow more acceptable.
The Jacobsons would lose their shit if they knew their hippie neighbors—who don’t mow their lawn, and let their chickens run loose, and support their queer kid—are potheads. Even though that should be obvious. Dad has the weird, scraggly, middle-aged man ponytail and wears cargo vests. And Mom is literally Ms. Frizzle, if Ms. Frizzle taught philosophy at a private liberal arts college.
A calendar notification dips across my mother’s hair, a reminder that I have an excuse to get off the phone (the necessary first step when it comes to ending phone calls with my mom, or she’ll keep talking for hours). “Oh, gotta go, Mom. Need to get ready for brunch.”
“Oh yeah! Where are you going?”
“Umm…Some diner.” The fewer details, the better.
I’m actually going to a drag brunch in Boystown, and while my mom is cool, she’s notthatcool. She understands the bisexual thing, and supports me no matter what (which I do not take for granted), but drag seems to rub her second-wave feminist principles the wrong way. Same reason I don’t push her to compliment my increasingly masc presentation, even though she bends over backwards looking for anything femme to gush about. And why I tell her that she/her pronouns don’t bother me that much (even though they do). My mom is not ready to unpack her gender essentialism, and I’m too much of a people pleaser to push her. If I tell her I’m going to a drag show now, she’s going to want to have a Long Conversation about it.
“Well, I’ll let you get going then, I just wanted to call and see how you’re doing.”
Step two: the summary of what we already talked about. “Yeah, just busy studying.” As usual.
