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RSVP For One

I believe in the brave deployment face.

Smiles.  Grin and bare it.  Just keep plugging.

It’s not so bad, I tell people.

And then I attend a wedding.

I really love weddings.

Except when I attend them alone, my husband deployed underwater like he invariably is.

People don’t know what to do with me at weddings.

I get a lot of looks of pity, especially if my children are with me.  When the unavoidable couples dance comes up, I get foisted off onto some table of widowed grandmothers, who pat my hand and tell me it’s all right. 

Then there are the people who don’t know what my marital status is.  They ignore my wedding ring and young offspring and assume I’m single.  Or divorced. 

More than once, I’ve been pushed into the group of single ladies hoping to catch the bouquet of flowers, my polite protests ignored.

I get left out of family photos. Or worse yet, at my own brother’s wedding, they arranged everyone with their partners and then cried, “OK! Now for my single person!” and plopped me in front of everyone, a step lower than the rest of my family, my children standing in front of my sister-in-law and other brother, the photographer assuming they were theirs.

So, in short, despite my natural inclination to enjoy parties based on love and merriment, I end up really disliking weddings.

And, my friends, it is currently wedding season.

I have attended two without my husband so far, one with my children in tow.  I didn’t consume a drop of alcohol and felt extremely hungover at the end of that ordeal.

And this week, I attend another.  In which I am one of 12 bridesmaids and my daughters are two of six flower girls.

My husband, meanwhile, will still be stuck under the deep blue.

Because of course he would be.  It’s my best friend’s wedding; the biggest wedding I am likely to ever attend.  The last wedding I will likely ever be a bridesmaid in. 

Military Murphy’s Law says there’s no way he would be home for that.

So, I will be striking out alone, my girls adorable and glowing in little dresses while I bribe them down the aisle at 8 p.m. with lollipops and ponies and anything they want as long as they don’t make a scene at this fancy evening wedding.

I am quite certain that is not something you’re supposed to do while teetering on stilettos you don’t normally wear and in a dress you don’t normally fit into.

It’s going to be one heckuva party.

Too bad I’ll be too frazzled to enjoy it.

I can’t wish an end to this deployment, so for now, I just need wedding season to be over.

Before it takes me and my matching, taffeta-wearing sanity with it.

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