You’ll Never Remember It on Your Wedding Day

My mother had a unique way of trying to bring perspective into my adolescent heartbreaks. There were many times I dealt with mean girls or felt rejected. She wouldn’t really listen to all the drama and she never really tried to help me navigate through it. She felt that my life was just too wonderful as a child to really focus too long on any negativity. And she was right. My parents did give me a phenomenal childhood.

But when those tears would fall from the latest middle school saga or high school heartbreak, she would just shrug it off and say, “Sweetheart, you’ll never remember it on your wedding day.”

It was her way of saying don’t sweat the small stuff.

She knew that on the most important day of my life I wouldn’t even be reminded of the current challenges or pain I was facing.

And on my wedding day, try as I might, I couldn’t remember a single one of those previously humongous problems. Or the people who caused them.

I give my mom a lot of credit for the thick skin I developed and for the “forgive and forget” mentality she gave me. In her opinion, life was just too short to even stay mad or upset for a minute longer than absolutely necessary. And she was absolutely right.

She also told me that five years into my marriage I wouldn’t even be able to remember the last names of any of the boys I was currently worked up about or why I thought they were so great. And do you know that when I had been married for five years I honestly sat down and tried to remember those names and I couldn’t?

So whatever it is you are facing today, keep it in perspective. Since we are already married I have now resorted to now saying that on my daughter’s wedding day, I won’t remember whatever it is that is troubling me today. My mom was right. Life really is just too short to let an ounce of joy be stolen from my life for something that I won’t even remember down the road.