Benched at the Wedding

So in this case, I am not actually benched at any wedding, but I was earlier swept away in somewhat of a heart-wrenching scene...

I don't know if I'm becoming less optimistic or less naive in my perceptions of the world, especially in regards to relationships, but today my mind was flooded with the possibilities of some very harsh realities that had never occurred to me before.

I hesitated whether to post anything at all, considering how personal all of these thoughts are, but I decided that I needed to send these thoughts into the cosmos before they continued to eat at me.

Love. Love has been described throughout the ages in all manner of ways. For all intents and purposes, I'm going to focus at first on the beautiful side of love. Love can be great if reciprocated and shown appropriately. Love can color a once gray world, and bring light to a once dim existence, blah blah, we get the picture. To be concise, love can make life worth living. Most people experience it at one point or other too. The unfathomable to me, is that people can experience it multiple times. What happens when the stars don't align for you and this love, and things don't work out? You end, and try to find something at least as great as what you had, and hope for improvements to have an even better love the next time, right?

What occurred to me today, was this: what happens when the person you are, or were once in love with marries another? Yes, of course this thought has frequently entered my mind before, and was just an accepted truth and inevitability in my mind, but I never actually pictured the situation or how it would actually feel. What do you do? Do you sob for days prior to and following the nuptial event? Does it hurt because you, cognizantly or not, pictured yourself possibly ending up with this person and now suddenly that's an impossibility? For lack of better terms, that would suck! That will suck. People don't just end up with the first person they fall in love with...which sucks! This must happen to almost everyone!..which sucks!

Oh, I'm perfectly aware that we probably weren't supposed to end up with each person we've fallen in love with. I know that we learn, grow, and become better from each experience, and I'm sure we'll even end up on our knees thanking God that we didn't end up with any of those people, but it's still a dismal thought to me. I don't just go around falling in love with everyone I date, in fact it's only happened to me once, despite my efforts for it not to! Yes, I want nothing but every happiness for those whom I've been star-crossed with, but I feel like I'll be left with melancholy unrest and unsettlement. I can hear my own questions now, "I wonder how it would have been if we could have worked things out," or "I wonder if I had done more if things would have worked out," or "Would we have been happier with each other than with the ones we'll end up with?" or, "Did he just choose the one who put herself out there more?" or, "Was he scared that I'd say no if he invested too much into me?" --Granted, these are the most insecure and previously unutterable thoughts imaginable, but I know that I'll have them when this dreaded day comes! Also, what if the guy doesn't tell you before he gets engaged! That's probably how it will be, knowing men, so what do you say? "Well, it seems congratulations are in order..."

Why have these realities never been tangible to me until now? At the moment, they seem to all but be happening tomorrow!

Dear cosmos, though you may not even be listening, I apologize for my outrage in this post, but I am quite taken back by the light that has been shed on certain situations. Things always seem to have their way of working out, so I'm not too incredibly worried about the eminence of situations like these. I guess it's good that this has hit me now, rather than shattered me later, haha.