Today was meant to be my wedding day

I am meant to be getting married today.

I am meant to be getting my hair curled and styled and my face lathered in beauty products I don’t know how to pronounce. I can close my eyes and feel it. The electric buzz in the air, my mom trying to recite a whole book of Tehillim and my sister arguing with the photographer about how conducive sea sand is with bridesmaid photos.

By now I would have had to take half a Xanax because god knows I would be a nervous wreck. Not due to any doubts (I was sure about my man the second I laid eyes on his scruffy face) but because I am a ball of anxiety at the best of times. And there is just SO MUCH that needs to go according to plan.

It is meant to be a weird, wonderful, momentous day, where I walk down the aisle, vision blurred with tears, and a sea of faces I love before me.

Yet, here I sit. In bed, in denial.

The days leading up to the 25^th of June have been filled by some of my most impressive work when it comes to justifications.

On Sunday, I spent the day feeling like a terrible person. How on earth could my wedding delay be causing me such sadness? There are just so many REAL things to worry about right now. There is a global pandemic, systemic racism rotting so many countries, everywhere you look is sorrow. How egotistical can I be to be letting a lack of a white dress get to me?

Then there was “Who needs marriage Monday.” I mean…I live with my fiancé, we wake up together, we go to sleep together, we share everything. In all senses of the word we are a family. Marriage is just a title society has told us we need in order to feed into a profitable industry. Now that I think about it, do I even want to get married?

By Wednesday I had convinced myself that having to delay the wedding was the best thing. I am far from my goal weight, my tan is not nearly as dark as I wanted it to be, and there is definitely a chill in the air.

But despite these valiant attempts, and despite the truth in many of my ardent justifications, I woke up today with a pressure on my chest and an emptiness in my belly.

It is not the end of the world that I had to postpone my big day, countless girls are in the same boat and have handled it with the grace and acceptance I only dream of.

But I am going to stop making justifications from this point on.

Because today was meant to be my wedding day.

And instead, I’m in bed, writing this piece.

And I’m human.

And it sucks.