I screwed everything up. The day was ruined and it was all my fault. At least that’s what it felt like sitting in the hotel room last Saturday night after falling victim to the specter of technical difficulties -- something I am not accustomed to doing.
Let me back up some.... About a week ago I got a message from my cousin asking if I would be willing to record a video of her son’s wedding, which was two days away. She apologized for it being so last minute, but I’ve done a few other wedding videos in the family, including her older son’s, so this wasn’t an unusual request. I told her I’d be happy to, and since I’m not really a fan of weddings (SURPRISE!!) this would give me something to do throughout the day. I recorded somewhere between two and three hours of video, spent the day thinking about a narrative, included candid moments in the crowd, captured the important touchstone events of the day, looked for unique perspectives the bride and groom would appreciate seeing later on. Long story short: Technical glitch. Two and a half hours of video reformatted into nothingness out of nowhere. If it were possible to have a part of my soul break off and wither away, I’m pretty sure it would feel like the moment of realizing the data was truly, irrecoverably gone.
At first I wanted to put my fist through the hotel wall, but that would have only made it easier for me to hear the snoring father and the crying baby next door, which I could already hear more clearly than I needed to. Instead I texted a few of my cousins, mostly looking for someone to commiserate with, but also because I felt I had to own up to this. Yeah, I know, it was a technical thing and it wasn’t my fault, but I try to be reliable for the people in my life so I still felt awful. I hated to think I had promised to take care of something so important to the bride and groom and I was going to let them down.
I met up with my parents in the lobby the following morning, and right away my mother could tell something was bothering me. (For future reference, if my face is expressionless, I’m not making eye contact and I’m only speaking in quiet, short sentences? It’s a good idea to keep your distance.) She empathized with my disappointment and said it would be okay in that way that mothers will say even when it won’t. But she also said something later that stuck with me. When she had been dancing with the groom at one point in the night, she had told him how great it had been to see him smiling all day long, and so happy. To which he replied, “What’s not to be happy about?”
And it clicked for me: Losing the video was a disappointment, but I’d made a much bigger deal out of it than what was necessary. Because whether or not there was a video, he was married to the love of his life, someone who compliments him as well as any one person could compliment another. And their wedding day had been perfect. They’d still have all the memories that came with the day, not to mention what had to be the at least three thousand pictures the photographer took. Losing the last-minute video wasn’t going to change any of that. Not having perfect wouldn’t be enough to keep them from being happy.
Are their lives going to be perfect from here on? Not likely. Nobody gets that. Even though it was a great day, there were some examples of not perfect going on in the lives of the dozens of family members we were all surrounded by that weekend. Some health concerns, palpable losses, professional stress, family stress, people feeling regrets about choices they’ve made or paths they’ve followed. But it was all okay in the moment, because we were together. I know there are a lot of Facebook photo-messages that get posted where people brag about how they have the greatest family or the best cousins or whatever. I’m happy for anyone with a strong family, but... no. You really don’t get it. Nobody has a family like we do. I know how much of a cliché it sounds to say that, but if you had the chance to spend time with all of us in the middle of Farmland, Wisconsin this past weekend and saw how so many levels of aunt / uncle / grandmother / cousin / second cousin / step second cousin / great-grandchildren blend together as just a collection of family, you might start to get it. So the best thing about the weekend for me, even with what felt like an epic failure right in the middle of it, was the chance to be reminded that I am part of something much greater than most people will ever get to experience.
Because of this I was able to put the whole video foul up in perspective: Even if it was sure to be a disappointment, it wasn’t enough to interfere with anyone’s greater happiness.
