She asked me recently, all wide-eyed, what my wedding day felt like. And I heard myself say something vague, like "oh it's all a bit of a blur now, so long ago."
It isn't a blur. I remember it clearly. I just remember it as nerves, not happiness. The pressure, the crowd, the exhaustion, the constant low hum of am I doing this right, the feeling of being watched rather than celebrated. If I'm honest, I mostly remember wanting the day to be over.
The happiness came later. Much later. In completely unremarkable moments - a Tuesday morning years in, coffee, ordinary quiet, the slow realization that this was actually good.
But she's young and full of fairy-tale ideas about weddings, and I don't want her first blueprint for love to be "your mother spent her wedding day anxious." So I play it down. Let it be a soft blur instead of an honest one.
She'll learn on her own that the real thing lives in the Tuesdays, not the ceremony. She doesn't need my anxiety as her starting point. Some truths are better arrived at than handed over.