People #2 (unedited)

Three Halloween coworkers have been on my mind lately.

I work at a local Halloween attraction each year and have known all of these people for four or five years.

Coworker B is the one I have known the longest. We worked in the same maze during my first year. I have long been a fan of her work.

She's younger than I would have guessed. I'm not sure how old I thought she was when we first met, but I know I thought she was a little older than it turns out she was.

In the past year she moved out of state, got engaged to her boyfriend and is about to move back to Minnesota, months before her wedding here. I have no idea where she met her fiance, where he's from or why they lived in Colorado. I have never met her fiance, but from pictures I have seen on Facebook and the few things I have gleaned from them, they seem like kindred spirits.

Coworker B is a performing artist, which is a vague way of saying that besides her Halloween work, she's a regular in the Renaissance festival scene. She makes her own costumes, has a unicorn costume she dons periodically, according to her pictures, owns snakes she performs with occasionally and does some sort of dance or performance involving fire.

I was infatuated with her five years ago, but that has worn off over time for a combination of reasons.

Even though we're not close friends, I'm invited to her wedding this summer. It sounds like it will be a non-traditional, casual ceremony, and I know a bunch of the Halloween gang is invited as well. This will be the first test of my October 2008 resolution to never attend another wedding. I haven't been invited to one in more than two years, and this is the first one I have to turn down if I stand by my resolution to never go to another wedding.

I wasn't surprised when Coworker B announced via Facebook several months ago that she is engaged, although the way she spoke of it sounded like she was less than ecstatic about it. But maybe that was just shock. Maybe the proposal came out of the blue. Nonetheless the planning and discussion of the wedding began.

And then, a few weeks ago, her relationship status changed from "engaged" to "it's complicated." About 24 hours later her status changed to "single." Several people offered comments of support, and Coworker B started posting rather pessimistic, depressed status updates. All of this happened after announcements that the happy couple was moving to Minnesota and buying a house. And within a week, her relationship status was back to engaged and plans continue for this summer's wedding, as well as the impending move back to Minnesota.

I'm not sure why Coworker B needed to air her relationship issues for hundreds to see via Facebook, but she did.

I think it's clear I don't know her well, but from everything I know, my gut instinct is that the odds are against eternal happiness for Coworker B and her fiance. Considering the divorce rate in this country, I'm not exactly betting against the odds, and I have no reason to root against them. I just have a bad feeling based upon what little I know about their relationship.

Will they be together five years from now? Stranger things have happened.

If it kills me, I'll find time this weekend to write about Coworker C and Coworker D, whose lives have taken two different paths in 2011.