I watched you get married this weekend.

I stood beside you and this friend of yours I haven't known for very long, but whom I' so glad to have met.

I watched you get married this weekend and also welcomed the flood of memories from having grown up together. So many times of cramming last-minute homework questions between 7:30 and the first bell. Sitting on the floor in front of the space heater in algebra 2, tear-soaked phone calls because one boy or another wouldn't pay us the attention we thought we deserved. Tear-soaked car rides because parents and us- we just didn't get along sometimes.

I watched you get married this weekend.

To the kind of man you probably needed, but who took a minute to come around.

I watched you get married this weekend and also remembered how we snuck around so that you met him. How we didn't care about the way people talked when they saw your vehicle behind the tire shop where the harvesters stayed. We though we were just making friends. You weren't supposed to find your husband yet.

I watched you get married this weekend.

And mostly I missed you.

I watched you get married this weekend and also I remembered sitting in the living room of my first rented house while you told me you were probably going back home and how much you missed him.

I watched you get married this weekend and I remembered how worried I was for our future, because I knew how strong you were and I wondered where that strength had gone.

I watched you get married this weekend, knowing that this has been a really hard year for you, and I'm glad that you had him.

I watched you get married this weekend.

The same way our loved ones watched us grow up.

The same way I watched you kick ass at college from home.

The same way we watched you succeed at ANYTHING you set your mind to.

I watched you get married this weekend.

And kissed a piece of my childhood goodbye.

But mostly I watched you know exactly what you were doing, and exactly what you want every step of the way.

The same way you watched out for me for the past eleven years, I watched you let someone else promise to watch out for you.