William and Harry Ruin All of Our Weekends by Accidentally Not Meeting Me

In case you haven't heard (i.e., you are living in a soundproof room somewhere where the squeals of single Memphis girls could not reach you), Prince William and Prince Harry dropped into my city last weekend for the wedding of a friend.  Two days prior to arrival, Harry broke up with his girlfriend, heightening already high expectations to levels no one here even knew what to do with. 

I'll admit it:  I joined in on the Harry-will-be-mine jokes.  It's the sort of joke that's more funny in public, though, than it is in the darkened corners of one's mind.  In reality, Harry can have that life.  And in reality, breakups are hard and probably never something one wants to go through right before watching two good friends celebrate the happiest day of their lives.

Wills and Harry visit Graceland.

I've been feeling pretty good about my life lately because all areas of it seemed to be moving in good directions.  But as the weekend approached, the personal side of things took a turn I wasn't expecting (and certainly didn't want) and as things spiraled progressively worse as we hurtled past the princes' stealthy departure home and straight through last night's Cinco de Mayo celebration (usually Slider comes through for me on Cinco, but this year it did not), I found myself feeling that familiar twinge of longing that crippled me for so long last year.  I could put a face on that longing if I wanted to, but I'm old enough now to know that that face is a temporary cover for something deeper.  That no matter how much you have, you always want more, until you accept that there is nothing that will fill you up except you.  Satisfaction is a frame of mind, and one I find oh-so-easy to relinquish at the first sign that I might not get what I want.

I have it on extremely good authority that Harry spent the wedding reception in roughly the same state that I was in last Cinco de Mayo.  He was surrounded by girls, and who can blame them?  I would have shamelessly been right there with them.  And yet there is something so sobering about that mental image of Harry.  Privileged beyond measure, famous past the point of needing a last name, eligible to any woman he could ever want, and yet dealing with it all in the simple and human way that everyone else in the goddamn world deals with their lives:  seeking an escape.

At Rendezvous (you should have gone to Central BBQ, boys).

The rehearsal dinner, the night before the wedding, was held at a country club roughly a mile from my house, which meant that neither hell nor high water was going to keep me away.  I wound up on the local news, which has given me my own taste of fame as people I barely know keep coming up to me and telling me they saw me on TV.

"Did you see them?!" is the inevitable follow-up question.

Yes and no.  I saw their car, I saw the window behind which they sat, and I may have even been able to make out some silhouettes.  But did I see them?  Easier to figure is that they could see me, right?  Standing on the curb, front and center in a surprisingly small crowd of people?  So that's what my answer has been, "They could see me, which is just as good."

That's what we're all really looking for anyway, it seems.  When we say we're looking for other people, what we're really looking for is someone to see us.  And to hope that when they do, they accept us.  That sentiment works on just about every level I can think to attach it to.

So in that way, maybe my weekend in Memphis wasn't all that different from William and Harry's.  Because we're all just people doing the best that we can, coping however we've found works best. 

(Maaaaaan, the conversations we could have had.  Those guys missed the chance of a lifetime in choosing only to look at me, I'm telling you...)