So.....I got married "again" today, and as I stood before the mirror, adjusting my outfit, I cannot help but think about how far I have come. Outside, the house is filled with excitement and my family members are moving from one room to another, people are making phone calls and someone is already complaining about how long it is taking us to get ready. Somewhere in the background, I can hear music playing. People are arriving form far and near and greetings are being exchanged, the familiar sound of relatives calling one another fills the air. There is food to be prepared, decorations to be arranged, and a billion little things that must be taken care of before the ceremony begins. It is a beautiful kind of chaos, the sort that makes Nigerian weddings memorable.
But then again i have had something in my heart for a long time now and beneath all the excitement, there is something else happening inside me. Something that nobody can see simply by looking at my face, because i am all smiles and giggles and that is that this is not my first wedding. A few years ago, I stood in a similar position, filled with hope and excitement about the future. I remember believing that I was beginning a beautiful chapter of my life, one that would be filled with companionship, understanding and the comfort of having someone to share my world with. Like many people getting married, I had dreams. I imagined the home we would build, the memories we would create and the challenges we would overcome together. I believed that whatever life brought our way, we would face it as a team. Unfortunately, life did not turn out the way I imagined.
My first marriage ended in divorce, and I would be lying if I said it did not shatter me. It was an indescribable pain, it was worse than a heartbreak and youd know what i mean if you've ever been through a heartbreak, like that was worse. You begin to question things and wonder what went wrong, but at the end of the day i just picked myself up and moved on. Im learning to do that a lot these days. Youll see some people sympathise with you. Others will gossip and a few may even look at you differently. But none of them truly knows what it feels like to live through the experience and i find myself asking, why judge a pain youve never experienced.
But that was all by the way and now, here I am, preparing to get married for the second time. If someone had told me during the darkest days following my divorce that I would one day find myself preparing for another wedding, I might have struggled to believe them. Yet, life has a way of surprising us. Sometimes, after we have experienced disappointment, we discover that there are still beautiful things waiting for us beyond what we thought was the end.
The first time, I entered marriage with dreams and expectations. This time, I am entering it with dreams, but also with experience. I understand that love is important, but love alone does not automatically make a marriage work. Marriage requires much more than just love to hold it together.
Today deserves to be enjoyed and tonight, when the guests have left and the music has stopped, I know that the real work will begin. The wedding celebration will end and life will return to its ordinary routines and that is when the true meaning of this day will begin to reveal itself.
A wedding lasts a day, but a marriage is built over time.