The Bridled with Joy staff is tired. Down to the bone tired. Maybe it was that 3:30 a.m. wake-up call yesterday for my day trip to Denver. Since when is it proper to do a day trip for a location 2 states and 1 timezone away? Who the hell invented the Age of Jet Travel? I'd like to give her a piece of my mind. Luckily, I made it back from my day trip to the Rocky Mountains by 9:30 last night, just in time to see some good old American debating. Didn't help my mood one bit to see the posturing and bickering between you-know-who and the ELDER you-know-who. I f*$&ing hate politics and what I perceive as the LIES LIES LIES. All of them, every single one. And this country has a serious fetish with What's Her Name with the Bangs and the Illegitimate Grandchildren. I will NEVER EVER read Newsweek again. I was almost done when it did its insulting sexist cover asking the question "What Women Want" with the lipstick on the cover. You would never see a cover that said "What Men Want," because the idea that men are homogenous or may all want one thing is absurd. But women, well, women are all alike so it makes sense to pose a question about what 50% of the population wants. It's so absurd and essentializing that I want to scream. Then, she's on the cover again this week. So much for that liberal media we are always hearing about.
Seems like the Bridled with Joy staff may be a in a bad mood!
This fatigue and growing neurosis has been put to good use on the wedding planning front, however. I've channeled this temporary mental illness into A-C-T-I-O-N. Yes, we are meeting with a wedding coordinator on Friday night. I am so excited I may spontaneously do a round-off flip flop down the hall at work. Next to finding Jeff, I think finding Pink Tie Wedding Planners is the next best thing to this wedding. I don't care if Mindy Shafer, our prospective coordinator, is the most incompetent woman on the planet, if she will show up for the rehearsal dinner and the wedding and allow me to project all of my misery and control and personality defects onto her, it will be the best money I have ever spent. Seriously. If I had to choose between getting my make up done and my hair done or having Mindy keep the Caboose on the tracks, bring on the do-it-yourself foam rollers and the L'Oreal mascara. I need help and I am woman enough to admit it. And, I am employed enough to pay for it.
Wanna see me cry? Ask me how we are handling walking down the aisle for the wedding. Go ahead. Ask me and watch my face contort and my eyes well up. Ask me how I feel about being true to myself and my Beloved's vision of our wedding as a partnership between two people who found each other and together made a decision to plan the rest of our lives together happily (as long as we have two sinks in the bathroom, that is) and start a family and join our bank accounts and make all future Big Life Decisions together. When Jeff and I got engaged-- which we did by proposing to each other and asking one another for a hand in marriage-- I asked him that night if there was any aspect of the wedding that was truly important to him. I remember him saying that he wanted us to walk down the aisle together. Both directions.
And it seems so fitting. For Jeff and me, who want our wedding to be a true expression of our values and beliefs and vision for ourselves, it is perfect that we would do it together. All the big parts of life, including the wedding ceremony, we want to do together. Maybe he won't be at the my pre-wedding waxing, which will be a big deal for reasons I will not recount here and now, but the aisle portions, we are doing together.
But, here's the part where I cry: What about my dad? What about that iconic moment when you are supposed to be walking with your dad and looking at your husband-to-be while you try not to trip? What about that? I plan to only have one big fat wedding, so the stakes seems sort of high. As a feminist I never loved the idea of one man handing me over to another one, even if I love them both. Chattel I am not. I don't want to be some passive baton passing between the first man whose name I share to the second one who will reconfigure all of my monograms. It's impossible for me to see that short walk-- and in our venue it's actually very, very short-- as uncomplicated because there are layers of history and fantasy and culture and "shoulds" that are clamoring louder and louder for my undivided attention. These days I just don't do undivided attention.
Wanna see me cry harder? Ask me what I want. Wow, get out the Puffs. The truth is that I don't know what I want. I want to be able to make decisions outside of feeling lots of pressure. I can't think of how to get out from under the pressure without telling myself I get to do this as many times as I want. Well, that thought is NOT consoling because this has been stressful, consuming and expensive. I want to be able to be close to my dad and honor all the ways in which he has shaped me through his life, his love, his sense of humor and his recovery. I want to be able to honor my relationship with Jeff at the same time in a way where we are not enslaved by all the conventions and mirages of history and tradition. I want to acknoweldge the past and move towards my future by being present. I want to feel sure, way deep down in my tired and frazzled old bones, that no matter what I do, I will be Beloved and honored and celebrated with the people who love me. I want be free of the small, tryannical voice in my head that is telling me that I have to do what other people want me to do or I will be kicked out of the club of people who are loveable. I want to stop taking everyone else's temperature and reading everyone else's mind before I honestly say or admit what I want. I want to be more in touch with Christie and less in touch with my fantasties and projections about what other people-- people I really love-- want. I want to lean into this. I want to be the Bride. I want a little more Bride and a little less zilla in my heart. I want to breathe.
My friend Robert says that I will be a miserable wreck no matter what happens. Strangely, I took so much comfort in that. I felt like that somewhat dreary (and likely correct) prediction lifted me right up off the hook I hoisted myself on years ago. I can see that I have set this up as either I let my dad down or I let Jeff down. I can't win that race. It's my specialty to set a race that is impossible to win.
So, here's me, tired and waving the white flag of surrender. I told Jro today that I suck at being a bride. I told Jeff last night that I suck at being a bride. Both of them sort of did that infuriating shrug of the shoulders and the looking at me as if my angst is sort of cute and endearing. Is that supposed to make me feel better? I am not sure, but I can report with veracity that it doesn't. Then, again, I am not sure what would. So, til then, I'll take my flag and wave it as proudly as I can.
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