Going to a dream wedding changed my perception of weddings.

Who are weddings supposed to be for?

Experiencing a death of a false self never gets any easier.

It's 4 am and I am in the airport. The bottom sole of my right shoe has fallen off. I spent time the night before super glueing it. This did not matter. Past Departures, past TSA, past countless gates, C12, C13, C19, C21, I have walked without it. My gait is unbalanced, I limp along on a left foot that's been sore for days, but now in my time of need, it has stepped up, shouldering the responsibility of carrying my body along where the missing sole has removed an inch of working length. C24. I tuck what's broken at the top of my clothes in my carry on luggage. I can't explain it and maybe it's just the fake deep in me, but it feels somewhat symbolic, this excision of the bottom of my shoe. It's almost like a physical representation of what I feel after attending my first wedding.

The wedding was nothing short of amazing. Epic. Refined. Elegant. It was a dream.

I cried at the speeches. My throat caught at the first dances. I felt jubilant for the bride when she was unveiled, her dark hair sliced and diced into a wavy bun, dress flowing long as the sounds of Beyonce and John Legend set the stage for her presence. I was in it fully, and I took it upon myself to relax into it so as to give the space the reverence and the energy that it required. We ate well, drank well, joked, and bantered amongst one another. To be there was an honor and for some time I really understood why marriage is such a momentous event.

So why did I feel empty afterwards?

Because as mentioned, we had a grand old time. (Chile, put a plate of jollof rice, a scenic lake, and an open bar in front of me, and a time will be had, I'll tell you that much!)

But I'd had a dream about weddings. An idea of the affair I'd kept close (maybe) because it was the last remaining part of my ties to the institution of marriage which my condition removes me from. But when faced with the ideal conditions for this fantasy to come to fruition -- I found myself out of body. When the lights came up and the stage was deconstructed, and the stomach ache that had been slowly building for the last few hours began to strike its most heavy hand, I understood for the first time that I didn't want any of it.

Not the grandeur, not the luxuries, certainly not marriage. It all felt like a huge production. There I was sitting a table alone, clutching my stomach, so sensitive to the smallest ingredients both physical and mental, when a question came to my mind: Who is all of this for?

It could be said it was for the couple, but it felt as if they were only on the periphery of the whole day, swallowed by the intricacies of it all, of being both party hosts and party favors, of being both guests of honor, and responsible for honoring guests. Love was on display but what was the love we were meant to understand? Was my role as guest to project my own ideas of love onto them, thereby associating the vignettes with something that cannot necessarily be defined but named as romance?

Or was it to enjoy it all as a party, a way to convene with old friends and new ones alike?

As a general rule, I expected a wedding to be something that the couple enjoys, a day(s) where they get to have fun and celebrate their union. But how can fun be had when so much of the day requires that the ones who are getting married make sure that all must go to plan? How can fun be had when the wedding must be rehearsed beforehand, prepared like a weekly show on Broadway where a song played too early in a scene disrupts its very meaning?

The parts of the day that really impacted me were the glimpses of the familial ties between the marrying couple and their respective families. The calm sway of the father and daughter as Whitney Houston crooned in the background. The mother of the groom miming Regina Belle lyrics to her son leaving the metaphorical nest. It was deeply impactful because there was a sincerity to them that no open bar or appetizer can ever produce. It was raw, simple, and descriptive of a sort of openness that would not otherwise be expected in daily life.

But had these moments too been rehearsed? Were these too apart of the show?

I always dreamed of weddings precisely because of this kind of indulgence. Even as I'd discovered my aromanticism (or something akin to that), I still had not shed my desire for this big day, or for this form of celebration that we were promised. I said, I don't want to be married, I want to have a wedding. In my visions, I would want to be in Italy, or Greece, or maybe somewhere in West Africa, somewhere with nature around us. There would first be jazz, and later DJ's, emotional private vows, champagne and slip dresses. I envisioned glamour and finesse, open mouth laughs and raucous banter, all in between flashes of deep eye contact and connection -- manifestations of twenty something odd years of my Hollywood indoctrination.

So why, when I got it, did I feel off?

It's kind of like when I realized Santa Claus was a farce. How can a person, magic or not, travel all of North Carolina in one night, let alone the entire world? Your honor, that's cap!

It was life shattering for a little girl with so much imagination and so much trust in this world to tell truth, a little girl who had not yet learned that there were forces larger than her that determined what she desired and understood and not that her thoughts were necessarily natural. Had my idea of weddings been all the same, implanted in my mind and needing to be severed to claim a part of reality that had been closed off from me?

I'm in the airport. I think, man, how am I going to walk around LA Union Station with the sole of my shoe missing? I wiggle my toes and listen to the family of five in front of me joke around about something I wasn't around for. A family of five. Wow. This makes me think about marriage. I think about the wedding.

Then a flash of something different. Do people notice my shoe is broken?

A part of me thinks that they do, that they stare at me this time not for the reasons they usually stare, but because they notice that something is off that they can't quite put a finger on. I'm interested in the explanations they come up with for why my shoe is broken. Quickly, I release this thought because I realize I don't care and it's not particularly productive. I just need to buy a new pair of shoes.

Huh. It's not something I'd ever considered being in an airport until the most unlikely thing to ever happen to me happened. I know they sell gray hoodies with cute abbreviations of the city printed in navy blue, and scarves for those who may be walking out of the airport into chilly weather or onto an airplane with drafty air conditioning. But shoes?

I do a search on my laptop and find that there's a store that may have some. I leave my bags at C24 and saunter around again without balance, a left leg elevated to support the other that has been severed unexpectedly. Pain shoots simultaneously from my injured left foot and my still calming stomach. I walk around looking for a shoe, but I also think about the wedding.

Have I been freed or am I now even further adrift, floating further and further away from all the places, and things, that I'm expected to enjoy and participate in in order to be a part of the collective us?

Why couldn't the super glue have just worked?

I find a pair of sandals in a store at C6. I slip them on and carry my broken shoes in my left hand as I walk back to the gate.