As weddings go, getting hitched on a sand dune in front of vacationing friends with no church service to speak of isn't half bad. On Thursday morning I headed out to Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina to attend the wedding of an old friend Jared Little. Jared was marrying his girlfriend of forever Lori and they both being kind of laid back people came up with a plan to incorporate their wedding ceremony into their annual Outer Banks trip with friends. I've attended this trek to the Outer Banks on only one occasion and was unimpressed with the locale, but many of my friends have continued on this tradition and it seemed fitting to squeeze in a wedding on this year's journey.
The drive from Augusta to Kill Devil Hills is roughly 7 hours, so I decided to head out the morning of the wedding. I arrived to the ajoining properties, two very large, blue houses named Boardwalk and Park Place where all vacationers had been spending the week with roughly 45 minutes to spare. It was a quaint, early evening ceremony presided over by a friend in lieu of a judge or priest behind the houses, less than 100 yards from the Atlantic Ocean. Both the bride and groom's families were on hand to witness the event although they were situated at nearby hotels while the mansions were reserved for the friends along for the vacation.
Considering that the wedding was taking place towards the end of a week long stay, many of the celebrants had "enjoyed" themselves immensely and appeared tired when the reception got underway. I made the trek more or less to see a few friends from Philly, but considering that one got food poisoning and was in bed by 10 PM, another got insanely drunk and passed out, I was left to fend for myself and mingle with a lot of people that I have been distant from over the past few years.
There was a time when I was living in the country (post-college) and became immersed into a group of folks called the Woxall Gang. Many of these people have gotten married over the years and they have always gone out of their way to include me when these events take place, even though we haven't really hung out socially in a long, long time. There is still a bond with this group despite our distance, but considering all the changes I have gone through over the last few years, when I am around them I feel pressured to live up to an image that is no longer me.
My involvement with this trip was extremely limited. I was invited and I was considering not going up until the night before. A lot of my not wanting to go was related to my aching teeth, but some of it was the idea of facing people who I think still reserve some weird judgment of who I am. Since I was very non-committal about even going, I left myself in the precarious position of not really having anywhere to "stay" once I arrived. I managed to store my stuff in a friend's room, a priviledge that was revoked when I came barreling in to grab my wedding gift in my bag and interrupted a sexual romp. I should have knocked I suppose. In any case, being a man without an island and practically one of the few remaining singles in the group, I was essentially the last man standing. I drank way too much, even drove home some of the groom's family completely shitfaced, and spent too many hours in a hot tub. At 5 AM, once I had been abandoned by The Dude, the person I spent the most time with, I managed to wander about the house and find a hallway to sleep in. The size of the houses was intimidating and I never properly toured the entire place nor took stock of if there were any empty rooms with beds. I fully intended to crash down the street at another house that my friend Chris had rented for the week but he is the aforementioned "passed out" friend. Long story short, I picked the hallway that was filled with rooms that housed the couples with kids. So at 7 AM I was awakened by little Joey who was running the halls. I managed to drift in and out of sleep for 2 more hours before quitting and getting my ass up for good at 9 AM. As irony would have it, in broad daylight and with more time committed to learning the layout of the houses, I came to find that the "living room" was located near the top of the house and it was quite full of couches that could have been used for a bed. I'm a dummy.
Friday morning was ugly on the coast, rainy and cold. A lot of folks cut short their stay and began heading out a day early, back to their destinations. The houses were rented until Saturday, but considering the rather tame reception and horrible weather, I guess some folks had enough. Myself, I was more concerned with having to work today at 3 PM. I had such a lousy night's sleep, I was exhausted but felt up to just getting home. My momentum drove me to say my goodbyes and get on the road by 11:45 AM. The plan was to push through and get home by 7PM. Sadly my body had other ideas. By 2 PM my eyes were getting heavy, and by 2:30 they had closed while I was doing 80 MPH on 95 South. I was forced to pull of into Selma, NC, rent a hotel room and just crash. Not exactly how I planned for this trip to go...
In hindsight, I probably should have stayed in Kill Devil Hills, relaxed all day, found an empty room in one of the houses, hit the hay early and got up today and pushed straight through to work. I guess I didn't trust myself to make it all the way back by 3 PM. Or maybe I'm just so disconnected from my friends these days that I was uncomfortable to the point of wanting to leave? I even thought that perhaps I was just so lonely there, a lot of couples and the theme of marriage running amok makes a man think about his bachelorhood, that I wanted to just get away from the event as quickly as I could? If I had brought a date, I may have been more eager to stay.
In any case, I got up around 7 PM yesterday in Selma. Somewhat refreshed, but absolutely starving. I grabbed some food, watched some TV until 1 AM and then went back to sleep taking full advantage of my $38 hotel room. (Sidenote: This was possibly the nastiest hotel room I've ever stayed in.) I was literally 1 mile from the Ava Gardner museum, but alas it was closed as was much of what Selma had to offer after nightfall. I got up this morning after an awkward night of sleep in a hotel room locate was felt like mere feet from 95, at least based on the constant buzz of highway traffic that was inescapable. Making the remaining 4 hours was no problem today, even with a brief stop at South of the Border to snap some pictures, I was home in time to eat breakfast and unwind before having to make my way to the office.
The best time I had was when I was silently taking pictures of my friends. I always seem to be happy when I'm behind the scenes, a complete change from who I used to be. I was always so obnixious and forceful, and falling back into that role around these people made me very aware of just how much I don't like that version of myself anymore. I'm not unhappy that I decided to go, I did get value out of seeing a lot of old faces and it was very good to be around people who know me for a change. Even if the man they know is just not the same, they still know the history of Skip. The closeness isn't there enough for me to explain in a brief interlude all the changes I've undergone over the past few years, and so I can't blame any of them for expecting me to just be the same old "crazy" guy they all remember.
And oh, forgot to mention that I managed to get a speeding ticket in North Carolina 20 miles short of the wedding location on my way there. Awesome.
See the photos here.
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