numb

one of my favorite all-time U2 videos is for this song. click here to see it in all its droning glory...

sometimes 'numb' is something that i wish i could feel. i'm learning slowly but surely that it's a cheap substitute for peace and calm, but 'numb' is sometimes the best i think i can hope. like the lyrics:
don't grab
don't clutch
don't hope for too much
don't breathe
or achieve
or grieve without leave
....
i feel numb
i feel numb
too much is not enough...

i had been psyching myself up for the Epic Ex wedding. it actually means a lot to me that he would invite me. sort of a testament to all the work we have both done over these years to become and stay friends. real, actual friends who have been meaningful parts of each others' lives. have talked about our honest lives with each other, have learned to be something new and enjoyed each other in that space. healthily, and without pain or awkwardness. it has been great, and i thank God for it.

so to know that i am included on a relatively short guest list for his wedding has felt a bit like a merit badge of growth and emotional reconciliation.

a few weeks ago i connected Epic Ex to my dear friend Honey who is a wedding photographer and they hired her and her husband to shoot their wedding. i had coffee with her today and she told me some details about the wedding. things she wanted me to consider before i decide. it will be a very personal, very intimate ceremony and reception. the kind of event that i love to be part of, when you feel like you've been nestled into an incredible gift of love and joy. and i'm happy for them. and i am over him. but somehow it feels like i want to go more as a statement and less as a purely jubilant guest.

that's it, i guess. i do want to be able to celebrate with him, he has come a long way and he is ridiculously happy. and i want that for him. but i could do that with a thoughtful gift and prayers for their new life together without actually watching the vows, the kiss, the tears. without actually hugging my way through the receiving line, without willing myself into confidence and easy brilliance around his family, without drenching myself in the inevitable emotional baptism.

if i go only to prove something to myself, or to him, or to his family, then i should not go. if i go only to declare to the world that i am SO over him, that we are friends, that the new bride should think absolutely nothing of me, then i should not go. i know that no one will be thinking or wondering about me - not his family or her or anyone else. i know that i do not matter one speck in the grand scheme. in that sense, it really doesn't matter whether i go or not. the question then becomes whether or not i should go, and whether i go for selfish reasons or purer motives. and whether i will regret it one way or another.

if i can go (with a date) and enjoy myself and be happy to be part of this incredible day as a dear friend of the groom, then great. if i will have to dope myself with the novacain of numb and detachment to make it through the day, then i should not.