I've told people the stories, of the well-liquored crowd gathering in the Vegas streets as midnight approached, of the Elvis impersonator at the wedding chapel whose singing made my soon-to-be wife wince, of the taxi ride back to the hotel as fireworks lit up the sky.
These are the stories of my wedding night, twenty years ago today.
Thing is, though, they seem to exist mostly as stories, not as actual, tangible memories. Whenever I tell anybody about that night, or the brief years of married life that followed, it's like I'm reciting lines, an actor late in the run of the play, no longer capable of feeling the meaning behind the words.
Part of that is simply time. This happened a long time ago, and a lot has happened since. Memories fade, details disappear, all to make way for newer memories. The human brain only has so much storage capacity.
Sure, but I can remember the late afternoon light falling through the windows in the mental ward of the University Hospital in Iowa City, and the Phil Collins video on the TV, and the juice boxes that accompanied meals. I can still feel the intense heat and smell the urine-soaked floors of the Port Authority men's room from my first trip to New York City. For that matter, I still vividly recall the crisp air and overcast sky on my first date with Sue Ellen, before I was foolish enough to propose, before she accepted, before we found ourselves in Vegas.
After that, though, it all gets hazy. Is it because I know how the story ends? Have I distanced myself as a form of protection? Or was it maybe just not as big a deal as it seemed at the time? I'd never been in love before, and I thought it was supposed to last forever, but really, it was only five years out of a life that has lasted fifty-two years. Maybe it was just a blip along the way.
We're still friends. We don't talk as much as we used to, but that's okay. We have different lives, and as time goes on, it's become more obvious that we don't really have all that much in common. But I suspect we have similar memories of that night, and of all our time together. It was a thing that happened, but it was another time, another place.
Another life.
