Other stuff: weddings, choices, destiny?

I was bored and feeling a little nostalgic so I flipped through my online album and found where I had scanned some album pages my little sister made of my wedding.  I have no original photos from my first wedding - my ex kept the album when I moved out.

I was 18, three months pregnant, and skinny as a rail!  I actually weighed less than my teenager does now, and she is two inches shorter than me and in great shape.  I loved the dress, which my mom made for me... it was tea length and a brocade.  In the picture, I'm holding a tissue and have a red nose because I essentially bawled through most of the ceremony.  After the wedding, which was just a big damn mess, we walked around town and then went back to my mom's, where I fell asleep on the couch and he crashed on the recliner.  Inside me that day, nothing but chaos.

My second wedding I was 25.  After a few years together, he was stationed in Japan for a year, so I had moved back in with my mom, five year old in tow.  Just a few months into his year tour, we both flew to Hawaii for ten days and to get married.  I was not pregnant, and had gone blonde for several years.  I was up to about 155 lbs, which is just peachy for me.  I wore a dress my mom bought for me at an import shop... just a soft cotton dress.  There was no actual dog and pony show, just us and the minister and his wife in a park on Oahu.  The sun was setting on one side, and the moon was visible on the other side.  My sandals were uncomfortable so I ditched them.  I remember so little of what the minister said.  All I remember was that hubby's eyes were the clearest green I have ever seen them.  They are green when he is happy, and they cloud up when his mood does.  Then we went and tootled around town and got some Thai food.  Inside me, nothing but peace.

Isn't it funny how even when we know something is wrong, we will still carry through with it if we think it is the thing we are "supposed" to do?  I felt like I was supposed to marry my daughter's dad, and it was disastrous.  Sadly, I knew it would be from the start.  Marrying my current husband, though his career has made it challenging many times, is something I was and am so positive about.  He is the best thing that ever happened to me and continues to be, every day.

Sometimes I wish I could redo the whole wedding thing.  Have the perfect dress, perfect hair, good photos...  In fact once I planned an entire vow renewal down to the favors, but when hubby said to start booking things, I said Nah!!  We had our wedding, and it wasn't what the wedding industry says we were "supposed" to have, but it was wonderful and it was enough to last a lifetime.  And when I look at pictures of us now, we're no longer quite so thin (170 and holding!) and no longer young (36, thank you very much), but we are so - damn - happy.

Married 11 years, together for 15, and this is it.

I hope you feel as blessed as I do, and if you don't, I hope you will find the second chance I did.