I admit it...

... marriage isn't my bag, no, but I would hate more than anything to live in a world where I didn't see one of my dearest friends look as happy as she did today, where I didn't get to see her say I do and mean it more than I've probably ever meant anything except the I love you's uttered to my daughter.

And here's what trips me up about that, in a big way. The love between my child and I is indeed a force to be reckoned with. It's borderline creepy love, like the kind that might make a mother tell her child all men were evil and lock her away in an ivory tower... or at least a Lorelei/Rory worthy closeness that probably isn't criminal, but definitely counts as some sort of unhealthy enmeshment that child psychiatrist warn against. But it's a big, wonderful completely authentic natural unstoppable love, and it floors me. However, that big creepy wonderful authentic unhealthy love is to some degree authentic because it is biological-- before the real love came, a surge of chemicals rushed through me forcing me to love the kicking ball of cartilage and spine that rolled on my bladder and incubated itself inside of me, only to be born to do nothing but require my maintenance and bite my nipples for the next couple of months before there was the laughing and smiling and little her coming out bit by bit.

Before anything else, that love existed purely to keep her from giving up on screaming to have her needs met by the only person that was physically created to meet them, purely to keep me from in a fit of exhaustion and frustration simply walk away from my young when I'd had enough and heading back to the wild without a thought to how she would fend on her own.

I'm not saying this to slight the sincerity of my love, only to say that originally, I loved because of something in my genetic makeup that makes me more maternal than some ( and then, loved to the somewhat freakish degree I do because of something no one ever would have suspected in my genetic makeup that makes me way the fuck more maternal than most).

Ultimately, my daughter and I love so purely and in such a forever way because it's pure science... we were made for each other. Literally.

But Courtney wasn't made for this man. Not in the way that a mother and child are, hard-wired in such a way that it seems to me someone must be working hard against their own biological makeup to not be (as some mothers manage, which baffles me to no end). No, this love didn't HAVE to be, this love wasn't 100% embedded in her without any say so from the get-go. My friend looked a man in the eyes, thought about it...

.... and then made the decision that yes, yes, she was going to share a part of herself, the bigger part of herself, her entire life and all of her love, with this man forever.

And while I don't understand that, while I know that's something that isn't within me and am not only at peace with that but a little admirable of myself for usually, I have to admit-- I was envious today for just a moment. Somehow, for a second, it registered with me that in a way this makes my friend somewhat scientifically superior to me. This woman can love to this degree without having to... this woman can choose something so big.

This woman can do something that my brain can't piece together at all. This woman can make the adult decision to love fully and entirely in a way I can never never ever seem to grasp.

And, I feel suddenly very limited in the way my mind processes love, I feel limited in what I have the ability to want to take for myself. And I feel lucky beyond words to be friends with someone with that beautiful amazing ability.

So there's that I suppose... the love of an amazing friend for all that she is, that's something I can choose to nurture and give myself to completely. I can take pleasure in that and hold it close and really protect it and treasure it even though it isn't hardwired into me, I can commit to my friendships and take joy from their joy freely and endlessly...

And, I do.

So, while thank God it's her and not me... I can be for a moment completely delighted for a marriage of two people today. And I suppose that vicarious happiness through another, it's in its way every bit as delightful as whatever it is that I'm not looking for from anything romantic. So, dare I say it-- yay, marriage.