"Weddings Just Make You Think About... Yourself"

I can’t place a finger on the movie I heard that line from last weekend when I spent a few days at home, but it’s stayed in my mind since.

Weddings make me thing a lot about myself. Like, I hope I don’t have to wear that heinous mid-length, cap sleeve dress that literally, I will never wear again. Someone will, and that someone will have to get it from the nearest donation center. And that hair…can the bride not take our feelings into consideration?! 

I’m the Maid of Honor in an upcoming wedding and I am relieved to say I am wearing a floor length chiffon gown. I slept easier the night I found that out.   

Weddings make me think of just how un-prepared I am to get married. Sometimes I can hardly make dinner for myself, let alone another human being. I can hold my own in the kitchen, but here and there really find satisfaction in eating straight from the dish or pan knowing I didn’t dirty another plate. It’s the little things in life…

Weddings tend to make me a little sappy. I see the bride walking down the aisle and turn just in time to see the groom smile in awe at the woman in white who will be his wife in just a few short moments. Close friends of mine, strangers, wedding videos on Pinterest…doesn’t matter. I think of how great it would be to give up my apartment and move to the suburbs, quit going to bed when some are getting up, and stop my highly entertaining life (to me, at least) that produces these blog posts. 

The last sentence in above paragraph is a joke. I think twice and remember why I am at this wedding and not in it.  I’m not ready to give up hangovers and hysterical morning-after stories. Debating between the $8 bottle of wine or the $10.99 case of beer. Finding reasons to book a party trolley “just because.”

Weddings make you very aware of yourself…no, I don’t want to be the one getting married right now, but why is she getting married?! What’s wrong with me? What is so right with her? Why did I get a +1 and RSVP for just myself? Does everyone have a significant other but me!? 

Well, no. I just have more fun on my own than dragging a date with me. 

And without a date and after I have run out of selfish thoughts as to why I’m here alone, I’ve sat in awe of the people before me that are sacrificing their lives apart to make a new one together. 

Weddings show you what can be and what love is. Maybe they’re my age and I can’t imagine being up there, or maybe they’re older and it makes me smile that everyone eventually finds their "someone."

I might (I mean, just a little) sound like I’m anti-marriage, but if you’re the right guy…disregard this entire post. And come find me. I might stop eating standing up in my kitchen and actually set a place at the table for you. 

27 Dresses

"I Will Do Anything for Love...But I Won't Do That (anymore)."

Aries March 21-April 19

"You’re obsessed with your looks. You’re convinced that you’re too fat, too thin, too hairy or not hairy enough. With the sun opposite your sign, you’re worried that you’ll be alone and be eaten by your many cats."

Well hello, Monday morning. That was a little daunting, no?

The Red Eye took no mercy on its Aries readers (me) commuting downtown or to the suburbs for work (as if the ‘burbs aren’t bad enough) with that encouraging horoscope reading.

It’s not completely inaccurate, however. Have you thought you were too fat (too thin? Um…), too tall, too short, too pale, not blonde enough, too blonde?

Have you primped, poked, brushed, bronzed, and scrubbed to look good for a special event or date? Debated with your mirror on curled hair vs. straight hair and brown eyeliner over black? Bitten your lips to appear like you had lip stain on when you’ve forgotten because Cosmo said it was sexy?

Did you ever run the extra mile and finish an extra lunge set because the guy you were into at the time said he was a “butt and legs guy?” Was the weekend you could pull your skinny jeans on without sounding like a grunting pig worth it? Was it? Don’t lie. You hated every minute of that extra mile.

Pore refining and hair gloss masks to anti-aging and wrinkle plumping creams to shine control and dew enhancing sprays…you’ve tried them all, I bet. Who even achieves the right balance of shine-free, dewy skin? Anyone? Anyone?

Some of you have grown your hair out, cut it, highlighted it, low-lighted it, smoothed it, treated it….and received the best compliments when you highlighted it yourself with a bleach kit from Walgreens.

Maybe not. Maybe you’re the ONE completely normal person in this world (or Kate Upton) and have never done any of these crazy things to look good. But I have. I mean, just a couple of them. A few. OK…all of them.

Guess what? No guy notices if you wear brown eyeliner instead of black. That you ran five miles tonight instead of four. He won’t notice you wore a free Sephora anti-wrinkle cream sample to bed last night (but look closer! I swear, my laugh lines are filled in). 

He didn’t notice you devoured a huge piece of pizza for dinner or when you used a caffeine and cucumber infused refining mask versus nothing at all. He won’t tell you your plum eye shadow really enhances the flecks of green in your otherwise dirty water brown eyes (but hey, plum is chic this year).

Why? 

Because guys don’t care. They dooooo NOT care. They don’t want to date a red-faced (curse that exfoliation), starving, swollen lip version of yourself that is anything but you. 

So take off your silly masks, whatever they may be, and….

“Just be yourself. That’s why people like you.” – Drake

 And don’t ever get a cat.