I Did...I Am

It happened.  I was just sitting there on hold to Walgreens pharmacy department, minding my own business when the On Hold music switched to something other than Muzak.    "The Wedding Song" by Paul Stokey.

A very special tune, that.  How many people have had that one played at some point during their nuptials?   I wonder.

My one wedding celebration was on June 21, 1975.  It was a vibrant sunny Philly-Suburb kinda day with a gentle breeze.  The church was huge...no, I mean really H-U-G-E, more like a cathedral than a local house of worship.

The place dwarfed everything and everyone; even our large family was little more than a few pew-rows worth for the wedding.  The invited and uninvited showed up...in-laws, out-laws, friends, friends my mother didn't want me to see, friends I hadn't seen in years, favorite school teachers, our mailman....everybody!

We kinda mixed it up a little, having what was called an "Ecumenical Ceremony," because we had not only the priest at my family church (the very ginormous one we were being wedded in), but my fiance's minister as well.  Dad did the flowers-gardenias and white roses, my brothers did the music, mom made the bridal party veils, the reception was family catered at our family home.  Did I mention it was a family affair?  Just checking.   It was probably one of the more fun weddings I've ever attended and even though the marriage didn't last, the memories did.

My ex-husband and I are still in touch and is someone I consider a friend.

To be honest, sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I'd stayed married.  Would we have had more kids?  Would we have stayed in Philly?

Hard to say.  Somewhere in an alternate universe there's probably a me running around as all the opposites of the me that I am here.  But here is where I am....looking back on the day after, forty some-odd years earlier I was married.  It's weird, that song coming on out of the blue.

But anyway, for today Fifty Five Is The New I Did...I Am, because everything I did in the past is part of what and who I am now....still learning along the way.