The Wedding

“Everyone spells family differently”.

Someone close to me first shared this phrase with me a few months ago, and I have not stopped thinking about it since. Whether said with affection or with a hint of sarcasm, it rings true in ways that have become more poignantly apparent to me as of late.

My little sister is getting married this week. It is the first wedding in our immediate family, and naturally has been accompanied by excitement, nervousness, and a bit of chaos. As the date approaches, I have found myself unreasonably stressed. Though, I am not stressed about the ceremony, the flowers or place settings. I am bracing myself to be thrown back into my role of Designated Family Mediator.

Family members prone to disagreement? --I’ll plan to keep them separated. Friends prone to getting rowdy? --I’ll intervene before it begins. I will have damage control in place and run myself ragged doing it. But the funny thing is, no one asked me to.

I have found that if I take an honest look, I have a long track record of focusing my attention outward to avoid looking inward. Yes, family is messy. The type of messy varies, but there will always be something. The challenge, for me at least, has been to simply let it be that way. I have spent years making myself sick over family events not because something could go wrong, but because I probably wouldn't be able to prevent or fix it. Somewhere along the way I decided that it was my job to keep the peace at any cost. I decided that that was far more important than whether I was able to breathe or enjoy myself.

Everyone else’s comfort came before mine, and every conflict was also my conflict.

What I hope for myself, and other family peacemakers alike, is this:

I hope that someone has a disagreement, and I don’t step in.

I hope that the best man tells an off-color joke and I just laugh instead of scanning the room for disgruntled parents.

I hope I let myself laugh with my family instead of rehashing past hurts and resentments.

I hope that for once, I mind my own business long enough to see what is right in front of me.

If you take anything away from this brief reflection, let it be that you do not always have to control the chaos. While we all want to pull our weight to a certain degree, you are not meant to self-abandon so much that you lose yourself in family and are unable to participate in it. Fingers crossed that this week, I’ll be able to take my own advice.