<p>If I could do it all over, I would want to change both myself (I’d want to be as I am now, not as I was then), and the person I married.</p>
<p>But then I wouldn’t have my wonderful son, so I guess I wouldn’t make those changes after all.</p>
<p>I would, however, change the fact that there was a heat wave in late May, and that it was 100 degrees out. I would change the fact that the air conditioning wasn’t functioning in the limo I took from my apartment in New York City to the place we were getting married, in Summit, New Jersey. It was like an oven. Opening the windows didn’t help much at all. By the time I arrived, I wanted to take a cold shower. </p>
<p>And I would change the fact that I was basically an extra, a prop, during the entire thing. Not that I would have wanted to be the center of attention (the idea horrifies me), but I felt as if anyone could have substituted for me, and nobody would have noticed. (Of the 140 or so people there, about 130 were friends and relatives of my ex’s. I think I had met the ancient rabbi once before, but I doubt he recognized me.) And I would have wanted my mother still to be alive when I got married. (Even more so when my son was born, of course.)</p>
<p>I would have wanted to taste the wedding cake; we spent a long time going around greeting the guests, and by the time we got back to our seats, everything had been cleared away.</p>
<p>The wedding photos were nice, though. I haven’t seen them in many years; my ex kept them. After we separated, 10 years ago next month, my ex called me in a fury and accused me of having stolen the several wedding photos that were on display in the living room of our house. My protestations of innocence were not believed. It turned out that our son, who was 10 at the time, had taken them himself, and hidden them away in his room so he could look at them in secret. (I think he was afraid my ex was going to throw them out.) It broke my heart to find that out, and still makes me sad to think about. </p>
<p>I took off my ring the day I left (a plain gold band, of course), and I suppose it’s still around somewhere. Where, I have no idea. And I have no idea what happened to my ex’s rings. Maybe I should have gotten a clue about what was going to happen from the fact that they disappeared from my ex’s finger several years before we separated!</p>
<p>We had a very pretty Wedgewood pattern (the name of which I’ve now completely forgotten, as I have many of the details of our wedding and our early days together); my ex was rather obsessive about completing it during the first few years we were married. Not so easy to do in those pre-Internet days. But I think we actually ate off them only about twice in the 13 years we were together.</p>
<p>In the extraordinarily unlikely event I were ever interested in marrying again, I would want to keep things extremely simple. Both by natural inclination, and because I would feel awfully silly doing anything elaborate at my age. (I am not someone who feels particularly sad that she never had the opportunity to wear a wedding dress, I assure you.) The one other person whose presence would be essential to me would, of course, be my son.</p>
<p>However, if I did want to get married again, the chances are it would be to a woman, and since same-sex marriage is not yet legal in New York State, I couldn’t do it anyway unless and until the law changes. So it’s pointless to speculate about. (It is rather odd, I admit, to realize that there was a time when it would only have been legal for me to marry a woman, whereas now it would only be legal for me to marry a man.)</p>