I’m watching it.

And I’m just as surprised as you.

I live in the U.S.  We recoil at the concept of royalty.  Wills is likable.  Kate is cute, albeit a cipher.  But I’m reminded of nothing so much as my own wedding, and the feeling of hope, of being completely in the moment, of the sense that something is beginning.

I got divorced.

Actually, I contemplated disengagement during the reception.  But in retrospect, I know that I never would have left her.  She left me.  And that was a long time ago, even though at times it feels like yesterday, and I don’t want to get back together, but I long for that feeling of optimism, that life is in front of me instead of behind me.

Maybe Kate Middleton is fully alive.  Ready with a wisecrack, livening up the party.  Or maybe she’s introverted and hard to please.  And Wills is in for a life of regret.

And how can you trust anyone who marries a royal anyway?  Is it true love or is it about the status, the money…you know you can never separate these elements from the man.

And I want to be there.  Not to stand by the road and gawk, but to hang with Richard and Harry and have a fully English experience.  It’s daytime there but nighttime here.  I feel like I’m just a step behind.  The way I feel in the U.K. and Europe that I’m just a step ahead.

The commentary is inane.  Non-experts revealing what’s already known or should remain unknown.  There’s no exploration of the inner feelings, that concept of both being in the moment and standing beside yourself watching as the clergy asks you if you do.

If Kate has cellulite, I can’t see it.  What do they say, youth is wasted on the young?  I’d say it’s all downhill from here, but you get smarter, yet as you age fewer and fewer care about you, you fade into history before your time is done.

I’m getting that feeling of hope inside as I watch.  It’s being rekindled when I didn’t believe it was dormant, but dead.  I’m looking back and not asking for a do-over, but feeling that I could be that age and walking down that aisle once again, with hope and opportunity in front of me.

And I come from the Joni Mitchell school of relationships.  We don’t need no piece of paper from the city hall keeping us tied and true.  Relationships are in your mind.  But when you stand up and testify in front of family and friends it’s different.  The legality causes you to cast aside your old kit bag and start anew, with someone you know so well but on some level not at all.

Is this the way it’s supposed to be?  Two people together forever?  And if not, why do we go through the motions, if divorce is such a ready alternative?

Something inside me died with my divorce.  An innocence.  A belief that I could conquer the world.

But somehow, watching the royal wedding, it’s being revived.