Here is my embarrassing, uncensored rant, in all of its original pathetic-ness. Please, if you must read it, read my Royal Wedding Recant, too.
I hated the royal wedding. I hated every minute of it. I hated the pomp, the false religiosity, the needless expenditures, the manufactured sentimentalism. I hated the way the swooning public lapped it up, as dished to them by the cooing media. I am dumbfounded that people would camp out for hours for a glimpse of what is really just two human beings signing a perfectly ordinary contract.
What I hated the most were the promises. Have and hold, love and cherish, blah blah blah… Imperfect human beings simply cannot keep those promises, regardless of their lineage, their celebrity status, or their perceived levels of infatuation with one another. Do you realize what you’re doing? You are making a solemn vow that you will need to keep for your entire life. And you won’t be able to do it.
Obviously this is a divorcee speaking. Full disclosure: for a good 21 years now, weddings have just made me queasy and sad. I tried not to succumb to it this week, I really did. I made lemon posset, donned a British tea dress, did my hair and make-up, and made a fancy fascinator. I helped with decorations, in my own pathetic way. I tried to be curious about the gown and the tiara. I tried to absorb some of the collective estrogen in the room, and care just the slightest bit about the glamorous lives of princes and princesses.
But I don’t care. I simply don’t. Sure, fall in love (whatever), get married, get jewels, wear crowns. Smile and be perfect (yes, perfect) for the camera, because there’s no other acceptable state of existence for you now. And then prepare to enter (or re-enter) the real-life world of the rest of us, who make and break promises every day like the ones that no one, rich nor poor, can ever truly keep. You will hurt each other. You will hurt each other over and over again, because love breeds pain. It has its fleeting joys and pleasures, but the enduring reality is often one of loneliness, frustration, and suffering. Marriage is not what you think.
I wish I could become an idealist again. I wish I could believe that this one time, things will be different. This radiant couple will exist in a state of unending marital bliss, in which the rest of us will somehow vicariously participate. I’ll imagine that every wedding is a new beginning, because we humans are wired to gravitate toward hopefulness. Why else do weddings keep on happening? They are inherently optimistic.
I get it. The royal wedding sparks in all of us a yearning for the perfect life, and a belief that, under the right conditions, a perfect life may just be possible.
But what does a perfect life look like? What does my perfect life look like?
It looks like a perfect mind. A mind without constant ruminations and doubts. A mind that can make a sound decision and not look back. A mind that sees imperfection, and glides on past, unaffected.
It looks like a perfect heart. A cheerful, untroubled heart. A heart that sees goodness everywhere, and distributes it freely to others. A heart that does not tolerate sadness. A heart that doesn’t even recognize it.
Some days, I catch myself in a moment of unanticipated contentment, and I think, “I did it! I’m happy.” But I can’t hold on to that good feeling. It slips away, and often stays away so long that I mistake a sense of tolerability for a well-placed life.
Can the royals really be any different? Of course not. Do they live a fairy tale life within their castle walls? Of course not. Why this need to peer into their private affairs? Why not just let the world turn?
A wedding will not give them, or you, or me, the perfect life we all crave. Nothing will. The perfect mind, the perfect heart, the perfect union – it’s simply unattainable. That is what it means to be alive. We do our best to make it through, and we fabricate our narratives to carry us from one day to the next. We gather to celebrate the fabrications of others. We eat scones and dainty sandwiches. And then we go home. We change out of our party clothes, we tidy up the kitchen, and we retreat back into the imperfect selves we were before.
A long nap, from what I can see, is the closest thing I can think of to a life without suffering. By now, perhaps the royals are napping, too.
So, in many ways I get where you’re coming from, absolutely and completely. And what you’ve said is thought provoking, as usual. And yet, as I sit on the deck of the cottage I now inhabit on a beautiful little island with my sweetheart, David, and we look at each other in complete contentment and feel like we’re living the dream, I wish – well, I’m not exactly sure what I wish for you! I guess first and foremost I wish you could be totally and unconditionally happy. Happy in your own skin, happy with your life, happy for the royal couple, happy with someone, happy without someone. There were many years when I could not watch rom-coms, did not believe in romance – what a bunch of hogwash! Etc, etc and everything that goes with the disillusionment of love lost or betrayed or disappointed, and on down the list.
And then, after having kissed an awful lot of toads (thanks for all those “perfect matches”, match.cam -intentionally misspelled so they don’t insert an ad like they did the last time I referenced them) – I met David and found love, contentment, and happiness just when I thought I was over all of that!
So I guess what I hope for you, Natasha, as you live your exciting life in Morocco with a dream job and the ability to travel and experience new places and people, is that your heart always remains open – not necessarily looking for a partner, and never feeling you need one to be happy or complete, good god no! But an open heart because I want you to be as happy as ever possible, and I’d hate to think that the asshole husband who cheated on you (he didn’t deserve you) should continue in any way after all this time to diminish the quality of your life, your happiness, or your ability to love. And if I were as excellent a writer as you I’m sure I could have voiced my thoughts more eloquently, but there you have it!
Leslie