I’m going to a wedding this afternoon. I just painted my toenails in honor of the occasion. Once we get to the church, I plan on painting a smile on my face too.

This wedding is proving to be more difficult than most for me. The bride is my 19-year-old cousin. Yes, NINETEEN! And no, she’s not pregnant. That’s been the first question I’ve gotten when I tell everyone that I’m going to the wedding of a nineteen year old cousin.

It seems like just yesterday she was an eighteen-year-old announcing her engagement. I, of course, heard the news from sister #2.

“Did you hear that Lynn’s getting married?” she asked me one night at mamala and dad’s place.
“Yeah,” I said, bugging my eyes out. “Isn’t it absolutely ridiculous?”
“No,” she said. “I’m really happy for her. I think it’s great.”
“But she’s so young.”
“Did you think it was ridiculous when I got married at twenty?”
“Yes.”

Probably not the best thing to say to her a week before her anniversary, but I had to be honest. I thought it was ridiculous when she got married so young.

I’d like to say that the bitter jaded marriage cynic is something I’ve developed into as my eternal quest for that somethingness with a man has gone on. But, it’s not. I remember being a spring chick of 21 (or maybe 22) and writing a diatribe against young marriage for the college paper. I implored my female classmates to wait, that there was no reason to rush out and get the MRS before they’d even complete their BA. The letters to the editor flew in at an alarming speed. Women all over campus were pissed off. I even got cornered by a female professor who I respected. After she and I had a lively debate in the middle of the newspaper office, she admitted that she wished she had waited a few more years before getting married.

I’ll probably never understand the rush to the altar. Everyone just tells me it’s because I haven’t found THE ONE yet. Because, apparently once you find THE ONE all your beliefs and questions surrounding marriage and weddings fly out the door.

This wedding is proving more troublesome than most. A few years ago when my cousin Jason got married at the tender age of 20, I just shook my head in resignation. But Lynn’s wedding, is harder for me. Maybe because she’s a woman I don’t want her to settle on the first thing she sees. Maybe because I want her to go figure out who she is before she becomes someone’s wife.

It’s so hard for me, I think, because it makes me feel really quite old and I’m only 32! When I was a senior in high school I lived with Lynn and her family. Whenever I think of Lynn and her twin sister Lisa, I can’t help but see them as adorable four-year-olds who I took to the Homecoming football game because they wanted to see the cheerleaders. I see them on the field with my best friend Nikki and the rest of the cheerleaders, clearly the hit of the game. I see them in the stands with me and my friends, the tiny twins leading the crowd in a rousing edition of AC/DC’s “Shook Me All Night Long,” a song sister #2 had taught them. Yes, they knew the whole song by heart. It was the highlight of my senior year.

And now, she’s getting married.

I feel like I’ve failed her, like it was my responsibility to tell her to wait. To tell her that she doesn’t have to get married and that there’s nothing wrong with growing up and figuring things out first. Someone should have told her that she doesn’t have to rush into this, that she can just live with him and if it’s right, she can get married ten years from now. If it’s right, it’ll still be there in ten years. Isn’t that how it works?

But it wasn’t my place to tell her these things. I didn’t say anything. With so many people ecstatic at her impending marriage I wasn’t brave enough to be the lone voice of, well in my head, reason.

Now I will just swallow my concern. I will paint my smile brighter than my toenails and wish her all the best. I truly hope she’s happy and that this turns out exactly how she wants. I hope she realizes there’s more to marriage than a theme for the kitchen and matching bath towels. I hope she doesn’t wake up one day wondering who the hell she is, asking herself why she got married so young, and wondering what she’s missed.

I hope she’s happy.