What it took to get there

I cry at weddings. Always. Embarrassing.

It's not a planned reaction -- it always catches me off guard somehow -- but there's just something about weddings that provokes my lacrimal glands.

This weekend, sitting in a little chapel in the southwest quarter of Rochester, MN, I figured out what it is: It's the sheer magnitude of knowing what it took for the couple to get there. Of course, we always seem to focus on the sparkly romance and the dash of destiny that brought two people together into saccharine-sweet happiness. Stuff like, "How did you meet?" "When did you know he/she was The One?" and "How did he propose?" *swooooooooooooon*

But this time, I was thinking more about the long, heart-wrenching backstory that virtually everyone has to go through before the dizzy romantic part comes along.

Who got married this weekend? This (awesomely photoshopped) guy: Justin, one of my best friends. He's brilliant, hard-working, adventurous, tender-hearted, occasionally sassy, and relentlessly dedicated to being a good person. He has fought harder than most people I know to overcome what life has dealt him. So as I sat at his wedding, crying like a goober, it was because I was thinking about the long hard road he had traveled to make it to that day.

Of course he had to find the girl, hang on tight, shave his beard, rent a tux, and say "I do." But way before that, he had to leave his family and his home, decide whether to be a victim or a survivor, define for himself who he is and the kind of man he wants to be, and accept the fact that he's worth loving.

It took nearly 30 years, but the sweetness of that moment was all the richer because of what it took to get there.

Congratulations Justin and Katie.

It's really beautiful to see you happy at the end (and beginning) of this journey.