"the one"

I had one of those surreal moments this week. I received an invitation to a wedding from "E."

E was the unwitting object of my affections when I was in the seventh grade, my first crush. I remember gazing at her across the classroom, wishing she would notice me. In high school, I remember looking up at her with longing as she sang the lead in "Oklahoma." And just this profound sense of futility about ever getting to know her.

I remember my excitement when we both attended a retreat together at the end of my senior year of high school. I remember driving back together, talking, wishing, hoping. Keeping in touch with each other when we left for different colleges, driving up outrageous phone bills I had to somehow explain to my parents. I remember joining a mock trial team and competing simply because the competition was held where she went to school.

I remember vividly the first time I professed my love to her, the first time I asked her out. And the second, and the third (over the course of five years or so). I remember the pain of being turned down, the sense of puzzlement when she said she loved me but didn't want to go out with me.

Mostly, I remember the years of feeling as if she was "the one," the person that I would eventually end up with.

Life, obviously, did not end up that way. I married another. So is she, now.

I am happy for her. She is, more than anything, a dear friend of mine. So I will go to her wedding with a mixture of joy and...actually, I have no word for that other feeling yet. Sadness? Ambivalence? Irrational jealousy? Some combination of all of these?

And yet, there is also this feeling of hope. Hope for her. Hope for some sense of resolution. Hope that in celebrating this moment of her life, our friendship will be renewed and transformed.