Pickle Your Fancy

This month, I will attend 2 ½ weddings. The ½ is that of my cousin, which I will only be sending good thoughts and a present to, because she is marrying during my New York week.

Wedding #1 is for a 20-year-old who I watched grow up. For realz. This is the girl-- let’s call her Taylor Swift-- I wrote about 13 years ago on my first blog. That was back when she was 7, still spilling lemonade all over my papers and begging me to play Candy Island on my computer. That’s right, let’s just give that a moment to sink in.

Wedding #2 is for my friend Ali, with whom I went to college. We met at some type of university mixer. Both of us were wearing white t-shirts and denim overalls. We both had long brown hair at the time, too. Elle and Ali. No one could remember our names or who was whom. For the last decade, she has been my Holdout Single Friend. You know the one…super independent, doesn’t subscribe to traditional gender roles, kicks ass and takes names. And now Ali’s getting married, too.

It’s hard to say which of these weddings throw me the most off-kilter. Taylor Swift’s wedding clearly reminds me of my age. But Ali’s wedding marks the End of An Era. Also, my wedding invitation for Ali’s was sent to the wrong address; it just arrived and now I’m heading out of town and don’t have time to find a date. I will be the sole Truman University representative in a sea of Mizzou friends and family, watching my Holdout Single Friend tie the knot.

It’s at times like these when you take stock of your life. I was putting my classroom back together today with the help of my most reliable former student, Pickle. We were talking about why he broke up with another of my favorites, Rangly-Poo (I give all of my students nicknames, obvi). Pickle said that he and RP ran out of things to talk about, plus she didn’t like any of his friends or playing sports with him. He made a list of what he wants in a girlfriend, which, at 15 ½ is not a very long list. Then he made me make a list. I found that annoying, but Pickle insisted.

It turns out that you want the same things at 30 you do at 15… someone who will make you laugh, like your friends, challenge you mentally, and click with you chemically.

Pickle said, “Miss T, you're really down on yourself. So things haven’t gone the way you planned. You broke up with your boyfriend, you work for a district you hate, you don’t know how to play the drums. So what? You just have to think positive. Why, you’ve probably already met the guy you’re going to marry when you’re 45…”

“Excuse me. You think I’m getting married when I’m 45?”

“Well, it could be before then. But maybe not. Either way, we’ll be Facebook friends by that point because I will have graduated and I’ll come to your wedding…”

“The hell if I’m waiting until you graduate to get married!”

“Well, I just don’t see how it’s going to happen before then at the rate you’re going, but all right. And I’ll stand up there and give a toast and say—“

“Pickle, let me stop you right there. If you think you’re giving a toast at my wedding that starts with ‘I knew Miss T back when she was negative, and I told her that love was just around the corner and to be more positive,’ you are wrong.”

“No. I won’t call you Miss T by then because I’ll be old.”

Whenever I get a bit down about my life and the direction it’s heading, I’m glad the Pickles of the world pull me back from the ledge, even if it is just to laugh at me. I know at the heart of it, he’s right. There’s just no use in being negative. Eh, so I don’t know how to play the drums? Pickle said he’ll rally the troops and they’ll come by after soccer practice to teach me...