On Fake Weddings & Finding Strength in Weakness

Throughout the week I journal, daily, rarely to never missing a morning because it’s become so routine. After I pee, after I brush my teeth, after I put on the coffee, after I make the bed - I settle in to write. What comes up in my journal is varied; reflections on the day prior or a trend of overarching themes like love, loss, lust, counting down the months since I’ve had sex, and wondering if life is a trick.

It’s easy to count what we don’t have and to get attached to an idea. An attachment is often invisible, and it can make us unconsciously miserable. It can feel as though somehow, somewhere, some way - we’ve lost our light. And this loss only becomes visible through the patterns of our choices, thoughts and actions.

This week I found myself replaying a few recent conversations I had with my father. In his older age, and with his dementia, we repeatedly find ourselves talking about my love life and marriage. He’s offered to marry me off to cousins in Italy and he’s told me to bring someone home from Mexico. The chats are often concluded with “I wanna give you away. I wanna walk ya down the aisle to the altar, Tina Marie. I wanna dance with you.” It takes every ounce of strength to not cry when he repeats this to me. Mainly because I want to know love - but mostly because I’m afraid my father will not see me get married or witness this moment in my life. I can see the more blank stares appear in his eyes and I hear the tone of his “I love you with all my heart” becoming more sad, pronounced and distant. Like he knows and I know that our time is limited. I’ve been in a state. Such a state that I ate more, cried more and felt heavy in my body. I was mindlessly making choices and actively disengaging so I could stop feeling, but it wasn’t working.

My father is the only man in my life who’s loved me unconditionally. I’m attached to my father. To the old parts of him; to that steadfast love, to our beach walks and singing Elvis in the car. To knowing he would show up if I needed him. To the idea of giving him the chance to walk me down the aisle. I’m grieving losing him while he is still alive.

On Friday morning I started the work day and texted my friend to say “I’m thinking of planning a fake wedding. Even if he doesn’t remember the day, I’d have photos to show him as proof, maybe a video and a dance with my father who dreamed of being a ballroom dance instructor.” My friend agreed to take part and even said, “I would offer to marry you and be the man if my boobs were not so big.”

But I hung up the phone, smiling for the first time all week, and realized it felt wrong to lie and to fake love. I don’t want to lie for love - even if it is to make my father happy - or, really, to make me feel less bad for failing something I really have no control over. Coming to accept the realities of his illness, and me not being able to make his wish come true, was difficult to process this week. So, I asked God to help me be ok. I made a pact with God that whatever his will is, so it will be.

Has there ever been a time in life that you’ve been attached to an idea? Attached to a person? Maybe they’re still in your life, just not in the same way, and it’s hard to face? To feel the loss of someone while they are still alive is one of the hardest parts of the human experience. Non-present presence, drifting - call it what you may - it’s a slow burn.

And throughout all of these tears and looking down at my doughy, hormonal, one too many late night dinners, belly - I was reminded of a mantra from yoga class “I find strength in my weaknesses.” My work this week was to write this. To eat away pain, to momentarily wish for another outcome, and to think about lying to relieve heartache. My work was to be weak in order to arrive in my now. To remember that when I am attached, weak and in fear, concocting a lie, craving control, and eating to soothe - I am not present.

We can find strength in our weaknesses because there’s learning to do there. In the recognition of our weaknesses, there is freedom. A lotus grows in the mud and, fuck, life can be muddy. And, still, in all of it, there is beauty and something to learn through our own honesty.