I remember sitting there, in the hushed quiet of the temple, the scent of jasmine and old wood everywhere, and my heart was just… a hollow drum, you know? Like a cymbal that someone forgot to strike. I was 26, maybe 27, and my whole family was there, buzzing with this almost electric anticipation, my mother practically vibrating with joy, and I was just a shell. A beautiful shell, I suppose, in the traditional garb, feeling the weight of the silk and the expectations, heavier than any physical garment. I was looking at her, my bride, so radiant, so completely wrapped up in the moment, in the *sacredness* of it all, and I just… felt nothing. Or worse than nothing, a kind of corrosive cognitive dissonance, really, because every single word, every ancient mantra, every vow I was about to utter, felt like a lie. A grand, spectacular performance for an audience of hundreds, for a lifetime of expectation. It was funny, in a way, I almost laughed right there, a dark, bitter little chuckle bubbling up from somewhere deep inside, thinking about all those nights in my little apartment in the city, the one with the impossible rent, arguing about… everything. About belief, about tradition, about the very fabric of existence, really, with my diverse group of friends, all of us so clever, so cynical, tearing down every single institution, every dogma, every assumption. And here I was, about to swear by something I’d systematically dismantled in my own mind, piece by painful piece, over years and years. Every single day, every day, since I was a teenager really. It’s a strange thing, this hypocrisy, a kind of internal sabotage, isn’t it? To stand there, on the precipice of such a monumental commitment, and know, with absolute clinical certainty, that the foundation of it, the spiritual bedrock, was entirely absent for me. Poof. Gone. And yet… I went through with it. Of course I did. What else was there to do? To disappoint everyone? To shatter that fragile, beautiful illusion of perfect love, perfect faith, perfect future? To cause such public, irreparable anguish? The sheer magnitude of the social cost, the familial fallout… it was an unquantifiable burden, honestly. So I smiled. And I nodded. And I recited. And I swore. And I felt the phantom weight of those vows, a heavy cloak I’d chosen to wear, every single day since then. Sometimes, late at night, in the quiet of my own thoughts, I still wonder… was it worth it? The peace, the stability, the avoidance of that seismic rupture? Or did I just… build my whole life on sand, knowing it would always, always shift beneath my feet? It's a question without an answer, I suppose, just another one of those persistent echoes in the long corridor of a life lived.