I went to a wedding this past weekend. I don't hate weddings as much as you might think. I'm not sitting there seething with jealously the entire time. But I certainly don't enjoy them the way that I would like to. The best part for me is to see old friends; the people I would almost never see otherwise. Sometimes I get emotional when they ask how I'm doing. I stare deeply at them and my eyes well up. I shrug my shoulders and respond with a underwhelming "Okay".

I went to the wedding in my wheelchair; the one that folds up and weighs next to nothing. I can't really move it on my own, except using my feet. I'm not like one of those people with buff arms self-sufficiently wheeling around. I got out of the car, sat in my chair, was pushed to the wedding site, had a jacket put on me because it was miserably cold and windy, and sat there until the ceremony was over. I could continue but you get it.

The reception was the same; plop me down at a table and people come to see me. With most of them it's the same, they ask me questions and I don't have any answers. And they can't hear me over the talking and music anyway. I'd like for people to just come up and tell me what they're up to. It'd be a lot easier that way. 

It's very easy to get stuck in a one-way conversation that is going nowhere. One where I look and act completely uninterested while the other person struggles to hear anything I've said, and with any luck gives up and leaves me alone.

I still feel everyone's eyeballs when I'm in the chair. Some people definitely give me special attention. I might actually enjoy it if I could express myself better, but I am not suave, I cannot schmooze, I can't even embarrass myself with a story that starts with "Funny story" and ends in silence. 

So I observe. I watch and I listen and occasionally, if only for a few moments, I am hugely entertained. By somebody's outrageous dancing, an obvious moment of drunkenness, or by watching the stern, "I will not be having any fun at this wedding" guy standing alone in the corner and wondering whether his wife will successfully drag him on to the dance floor. She did. And good for her. Do you have to be so serious all the time? Can you let your guard down for a little while? It's a wedding not a middle school dance. What are you afraid of?

People come by and sit. Some of them feed me gossip; some feel an obligation to keep me company.