Nontraditional Bride

Sometimes I wonder if I have some kind of autism spectrum disorder, like a mild form of Asperger's.  I say that because I am having the hardest time getting absolutely giggly at my wedding.  I'm not sure this is normal.  Perhaps it's because most of my family is dead and I've been living with my fiancé for 2 years now - so it's not like anything is going to magically happen.  Maybe it's because I'm 35 and have fewer dreams than I did when I was 25.  Maybe because my dreams of my twenties came crashing down and I've become cynical.  Maybe all of the above.

I'm looking forward to being a wife, and specifically my fiance's wife, but I truly am missing some emotional chip here.  Billy laughs at me sometimes and tells me that I'm more of a guy in our relationship - I don't share my feelings, I'm pretty rational, I don't cry much, I look at things more logical than emotional.  I don't understand overflow of sadness, and I feel awkward with people who do.

I've been asked several times, "I bet you're over the moon.  You must be soooo excited about your wedding!" No, not really.  I'm not dreading it - don't get me wrong.  But I look at these young women on the wedding site forums and can't help but snort with derision at many of them.  So many are becoming bridezillas and princesses - "OMG, my friend is going to ruin MY day because she's wearing the same colors of my bridesmaids" or "This is MY day.  How dare a guy friend ask me if he can invite his live-in boyfriend when I clearly put him down as one?"  I'm finding these women are also forgetting that the wedding is about one thing - people sharing in the love a couple has for one another.  So many of these bridezillas seem to focus more on the attention that they will receive rather than the purpose.  Manners get thrown out the window.  How I can be excited at an event that, with every day, is becoming more and more commercialized.

I recently looked at my late parents' wedding album.  It was a lovely wedding.  They were married in the Catholic church with one bridesmaid and one groomsmen.  Then, according to the pictures, they had a small cake and punch reception.  Everything was beautiful and didn't seem over the top.  I know the 60s were a different time, but I doubt my mom was focusing on silly themes like "Romance and lace" or demanding that her bridesmaids spend $500 on sparkly leopard print shoes and matching clutch.  I doubt that they would've spent more than they could afford to show off something that is only temporary.

I'm not wearing white.  I don't care what song is being played as I enter the building.  We're not having a cocktail hour.  We're not spending more than we have in our accounts.  I ordered my pretty formal, colored dress three sizes too small - because I want to work like hell to get back to my pre-2009 weight.  But if I get pregnant before then, or break a leg and can't work out and then my dress won't fit - whatever.  I'll just get a new dress.  Life goes on.  I'll still be married at the end of the day.  I really don't want to stress, and I want to laugh if I get barbecue sauce on my dress or break a heel.  Life is all about rolling with the punches - something I've become very good at doing.

And again, I'll still be married by 4:30pm on that day.  :-)

Off the market

Well, I'm going to have to change my blurb about this blog soon. I am now engaged. :-) I'll have to change it to a "thirty-something newlywed" or a "thirty-something engaged girl" or something. Anyways. Billy knows me so well. He proposed on the same stage where we met three years ago. We had our final dress rehearsal for "Twelfth Night" (I'm directing and in it), and yesterday also happened to by my birthday. At the end of the show, at curtain call practice, he came out with a bag. Everyone started singing happy birthday, and I opened the package - it was a hollow book. I opened that and found another wrapped package. I opened that and it was another hollow book. This went on a few times until I found the ring. He dropped down on one knee and said, "Erica _____ _____, take pity on my poor soul and be my wife." Then much cheering and clapping - and photo taking! Our photographer friend was there to "take publicity photos" of our rehearsal - except he already did that and used the ruse of needing to take a few more. And he took about 100 of the whole engagement event. :-) And the ring - it's amazing. It's extremely non-traditional, has character, and will be a great legacy to bequeath. It's modeled after a Tudor rose - it has a red ruby center, 8 diamonds surrounding it in petals, and 4 emerald leaves. He knows me so well. Being engaged is bittersweet, as I am still mourning the loss of both my parents. My aunt (my mom's sister) died last week, and I gave a eulogy, which just opened up the grief again. At the viewing, my cousins created a slide show of my family, and I saw pictures of my mom with both of my cousins on my wedding day. That made me sad. My mom made everyone's wedding veils - both of my cousins, my sister, even my best friend. And I would not have one. I won't have a big, white wedding - most of my family is dead and it just seems so pointless. Instead, it will be a gathering for friends. We hope to have it in late winter/early spring (luckily we live in Texas, where sometimes we can wear shorts on Christmas), and it will be a large, fun barbecue. One of our friends will marry us, another will perform with his band, another will make our cake, etc. We'll drink out of mason jars and have a great time. I won't wear a white dress - but I will find a great one - and I'll splurge on shoes. I refuse to stress - I want to have fun. And luckily I have such a wonderful support system of friends - they can get me through it, for I know the tears will fall when I think about how I wish my parents could be there. My goal is to write more, to document this experience. I'm sure it'll be like a therapy for me. :-) Cheers!

Still Truckin'

As I knew would happen, I am growing from the initial stages of grief. The one-year mark in March came and went, and in an odd way, I was able to breathe much better afterwards. I survived the first year. Tomorrow will be the 18-year anniversary of my father's fatal asthma attack, the one that left him in a coma for several days before he died. I still miss my father, but the pain of not having him subsided long ago (for the most part). I have lived longer without him than with him, and I have had a pretty good life. I am starting to feel similar feelings about Mom, now. I love my parents, but my life is continuing. I have responsibilities and dreams and goals that did not died when they did. I am ok. I received an outstanding appraisal this year at work, I traveled to London last month, and I am still working on my thesis (which will be done in September... finally!). I've had my downs, too. I had another miscarriage earlier this month (number 2 now), but I dealt with it ok - definitely much better than the first one. Maybe Mom's death put things into perspective. Death happens, and shouldn't stop others from living. I hope that this will be one of my last entries about grief. I am growing, and don't want to dwell on sadness anymore. I will be directing another Shakespeare play, I'm traveling to London again in June, and I am looking forward to my grad school graduation. Within the next year, I will be married and hopefully have a successful pregnancy. I am only 34 - I have many good years left and I want to greet those years with smiles rather than tears. Ciao!

Grief - Part I

Grief is a funny thing. When you're suffering from it, no one can understand what you feel. Sure, people tell you they do, but each case is so different that it's actually quite impossible to know what someone is going through. When my father died, I had no friends at the time who had lost a parent. In fact, only one adult (maybe two) said to me, "I lost a parent when I was a teenager, so I know what you're going through." I smiled politely, and nodded - because that was the reaction expected of me. I don't remember much about the first year following my father's death. I remember anxiety attacks with my economics exam (my most loathed class). I remember my mom and my sister arguing. I remember only applying to one school - LSU - not because of its beauty or other positive attributes, but because it was out of state. The second and third year, I remember a growing anxiety, and seeing a school therapist about it. I tried to tell him it was because I was overwhelmed with exams and papers; he kept trying to go back to my father's death. I don't remember if I had anxiety or other issues prior to my father's death. I don't remember, but perhaps I did. I do, however, remember it more afterwards. When Mom died (it will be almost a year now), Billy tried to get me to see a therapist. I replied, on numerous occasions, that I was fine - I suffered through one parents' death, I can do it again. One of my students' parents emailed me her sympathy, and said that she lost both of her parents before she was 29. I felt somewhat uplifted by that. She has a lovely daughter, so she must have been able to hold things together. People remark about how strong I am, and they know I'll be fine. I nodded, smiled, and said, "Of course." I never let them see, not even Billy, that I often felt like drowning this past year. No one knows how I feel because no one's situation is the same. I find myself not only mourning the loss of my mother, but re-mourning the loss of my father, mourning that stability that so many of my friends have (for still, most of my friends still have both parents; only a handful only have one and I'm the only who have none). I'm mourning that I have questions that will never know answers. I'm mourning laughter, hopes, dreams, my future. I try to block out watching my mom dying, but it comes back at the most inopportune times. I started to become more like a recluse - my already borderline anti-social tendencies flared up. I became angry, I became anxious, I became listless. I pretty much lived on my couch, covered in a quilt that I took from Mom's house, a quilt that I wrapped myself up in while I was sitting next to her in hospice as she died. I find myself angry at my friends who get pregnant or get married, because I know my own parents won't be here to celebrate when those things happen to me. Billy brings up our wedding, and he has great plans, but for many months I wanted to cry instead of put on the happy face I wanted. Even my sister doesn't understand. She had a different relationship with our parents, Mom was there when she was married and had her son. I feel lonely. I feel angry, although much less. I feel anxious, although I know that, too is dwindling. I feel like I have no purpose, although that is slowly going away also. I feel like a fraud sometimes, for I don't know if I'm as strong as everyone says I am. I feel scared that no one will remember my parents, and I'll be a secret-keeper, keeping secrets that will die when I die. I'm scared that I'll die before I can pass on heirlooms to my kids, and then things will end up with people who have no idea how fantastic my father was, how understanding my mom was, how fortunate I was to have them in my life. And most people had no idea how I've truly been feeling. But I'm surviving. I survived Mom's birthday. I survived our first non-family Thanksgiving. I survived the worst Christmas of my life (even worse than the first one after Dad died). So, why now? Because, for the first time, I realize that I AM surviving. I feel the grief lessening it's vise across my throat. I hope this really is a turn, and not a false sense of comfort. But I guess we'll see, won't we? Ciao.