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Well, friends, it’s finally begun. That time in a person’s life, signalling their indoctrination into adulthood. I’ve been invited to a wedding. It’s not mine by the way. I’m about as far from married as it’s possible to get without being a newborn baby.
But my friends are now old enough to get married, and whilst I’ve managed to avoid it until now, the sword of Damocles has fallen. It’ll be the first wedding I’ve been to since I was about two years old, and I messed that one up by sitting in all of the professional photographs. Milestones become fewer the older you get, and the only ones I have left are dreaded birthdays, dreaded weddings and, further down the line, dreaded funerals. Basically, I dread everything the future has to offer me.
I am quite worried about spending the day with people I barely know, all of them more dressed up and fancy looking than I will be. I have a dress that’s fairly respectable, but as I don’t wear make-up I suspect that I’ll be the most raggedy-looking person there. I do try to look fancy when the occasion calls for it, but every time I try to look fancy I end up looking like someone awkwardly attempting to look fancy.
It’ll be fine. My ‘getting-married’ friend knows that I’m a mess so I don’t think I’ll disappoint her. My raggedy-ness is probably low on her wedding day list of priorities.
This means I’m heading back to Cardiff for a weekend; the city of my university dreams. Someone in a job interview asked me why I chose Cardiff as my university, a question I managed to blag through without anyone noticing. Honestly, it was either Cardiff or Aberystwyth and no offence to the latter but I wanted to go to a place that didn’t just have a crazy golf course as its main attraction. Also, a former friend was attending Aberystwyth at the time and I never wanted to risk meeting her again. I’m certainly not going to her wedding, if she ever has one.
It will be strange going back there. Last Christmas when my family visited the market, I felt like I was just returning from my regular trips home. It was weird being in Cardiff and not actually living there anymore. You can know a place inside out, but when you’re not officially a resident it feels very different being there. You’re no longer part of the exclusive club, instead you’re just another outsider who’s no longer privy to its secrets.
Is it too much to hope that my life will turn into something like Four Weddings and a Funeral? Yeah, but I’ll try not to be too disastrous, enjoy a weekend away, and then look forward to my next big solo trip. Colombia. I won’t go into too much detail about it, I’ll just say that the return trip will take me two days. A twenty-two hour stopover in Madrid airport. Those sloths better be worth it.
