I took an ill-advised nap yesterday afternoon and woke up when I was supposed to be leaving for the rehearsal, sprawled out on my little twin bed in cutoffs and a tee shirt, raw and confused and still helplessly sleepy as I put on a dress and some earrings and tumbled out the door. I drove the freeway I took to high school and listened to loud hip hop to keep from crying— about what I’m not sure I could tell you. Some particular protective layer had come off while I slept and suddenly it seemed overwhelming: my neatly done hair and nice dress, my mother’s big expensive car with its growling motor, the Los Angeles sun full and desert-warm through the windshield, every familiar inch of the 101 rolling by. The fact that I felt like I was going to a Sweet Sixteen and I was on my way to a country club to rehearse for a friend’s wedding; the fact that, even sleepy and confused, I knew perfectly well how to do this.

The Sweet Sixteens I did go to were generally lavish affairs, brunch for fifteen at a nice hotel restaurant with a video of the lucky girl receiving her bow-topped BMW, and favors for everyone who came; I would shyly valet my birdshit-spotted Honda and try to sweep inside knowingly, wearing oversize sunglasses and both of my pieces of Tiffany’s jewelery and looking at the other girls, smooth and lovely and sophisticated, put together, feeling intensely delighted when I felt I fit in. I knew it was a costume, and I loved that I knew how to put it on. It was important that sometimes I could look like a rich girl, too. I didn’t want to be one; prep school was an easy education in how little money could really get you, past a certain point. But I wanted to know I had the key to their world, and that I could pass an afternoon among them unnoticed.

This did not feel like that, exactly; I was among my closest friends, girls I’ve known since preschool, and there was no pretense or costume about it. I just liked the dress I was wearing and the way it looked on me; I had gotten a haircut, which meant neat trimmed bangs and the whole thing straight and shiny, for once. (It is deeply dismaying to me how instantly prettier I feel, still, with straight hair, more acceptable-looking, almost.) I liked looking down to the 405 pouring over the hill into the valley and talking about transit with other natives, high up above our city. It was scary because it wasn’t an afternoon in someone else’s world: I couldn’t pretend that it was just my stupid friends getting older and behaving, oddly, like grown ups.

The hour between the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner coincided with happy hour, so we took the Ecuadorian groomsmen to a fancy bar in Westwood with pink drinks on special: padrinos, cranberry mojitos, pomegranate margaritas. At dinner we played a drinking game with the wine the waiters kept pouring; J worked out a signal with one of them, palm raised and fingers extended: keep ‘em coming, sir, in five minute intervals.

Late, drunk, he leaned across the table to me. “Ignacio is getting married tomorrow,” he said. “Do you know what that means? Do you really know what that means?”

“It means that Allison is getting married tomorrow,” I said, meaning the same thing. Neither of us is remotely ready for this, but faced with our friends we had to acknowledge: they are. They were calm at the center of it, greeting everyone, making rounds, passing through the rituals of the grown up world. Many people have expressed surprise at how traditional young couples’ weddings are; “I thought our generation would do this differently,” A observed to me the other night. But it made sense, then, among all those relatives: it isn’t how I’d do it myself, but it serves as a kind of proving ground. When we were sixteen it was enough to put on the right clothes, show up on time and pick up the right fork. Now you throw the party yourself, inviting the right relatives, putting together a reasonable registry and a playlist that won’t offend. Weddings are fucking arcane; you participate in the full cultural rite as if to say, I know what these rules are and I can follow them just as well as you can.

As far as I can tell, the difference between behaving like an adult and actually being one is that you stop seeing it as performance— there is no secret thrill to picking up toilet paper and remembering to do all of the dishes before you go away for the weekend. It used to seem like a game; some days, recently, I realize it’s become habit. But I’m young enough to be scared of it all, still, and a little scared of myself. I’m going to be a bridesmaid today; no one who looks at me will think this is a joke or a ruse or a little girl playing dress up. I might not be fooling anyone, actually, particularly myself. I might just have to be there. I’ll let you know how it goes.