Freudian Slips

I have this Freudian slip issue. You know, that thing that Sigmund warned us about? Whereby we accidentally say what we really mean, but didn't realize we really meant.

My most common Freudian slip topic is the wedding/funeral one. I often confuse the two. I'll say, "Yeah, I'm officiating the funeral for that delightful couple..." and then pause and say, "Whoops..." And it's weird, because I don't think of marriage as a death. I adore being married. In many ways, a new world opened when I married R. (yes, join with me now in the Disney theme, "A Whole New World..."). It's weird, I tell you. Weird.

And it happens in reverse too, I often confuse a Hospice patient's funeral for a "wedding." I like this slip better, though, as it's sort of like an ethereal wedding and there's union, and bliss, and good stuff...

Today, as I was driving to yet another funeral (where, egad, the church WASN'T air-conditioned), I was thinking on the number of weddings vs. funerals I've attended or officiated. I'd say, given my profession, the ratio is about 1 to 30. I was thinking today, how much I'd really like a few more weddings...so much more celebratory, and so much more good wine. I was lamenting on how now that I'm a ripe 'ole 34, most of my friends are married, and there just aren't that many more weddings to attend. I was calculating how old I'll have to be until their kids get married, and there is a whole slew of weddings as there were that summer of 1994, when on one Saturday in June I was invited to 3 weddings!

I sighed a big sigh in the car (where else can you get the satisfaction of a really big sigh without getting an eye-roll from someone?). "Alas," I thought, "I don't know when I'll dance at the next wedding." And then I went to work and went to another funeral (where, did I mention, it was hot?).

AND... I got home, and wonder of wonders, there was a wedding invitation in our mailbox! For Labor Day weekend! A wedding I completely didn't expect to be invited to! A wedding where I'm actually so-very-happy for the couple, and not thinking, "Well I hope they can make it!" Ah! The joy! The rapture! R. said, "Do you want to go?" And I said, "Yes, yes, yes!" And he said, "Good! Me too!" And I almost danced a little jig on the kitchen tile floor for the delight of it all.

And now, I should say something witty and connected to the Freudian slip thing so I can draw this essay all full-circle...but, nothing is coming...and there's part of me that thinks perhaps it's appropriate with an essay on Freud to not come full circle as he deserves that, because his whole "penis envy" thing...well, utter shit.

How's that for a closing line?