On The Day I Was To Be A Bride.

Today, I was supposed to be a Bride.

It was my day to walk down an aisle with my daddy, in a sparkly white dress, carrying my beloved sunflowers, all my best girls with me, and marry a boy I met in a whirlwind romance.

The past year of my life has had the highest of my highs and the lowest of my lows. I have been to the mountaintop of joy, tears bursting forth from happiness and finally having everything I have ever wanted. A job where I was making a difference and was loved by my students; a true group of friends that have been weeded out through the years until only a few remain--but oh those few are so sweet; the world’s best puppy; and finally someone who loved me and wanted to spend his life with me. I couldn’t believe how just a few months before meeting him, I had given up on ever meeting anyone who could possible be what he was to and for me.

We met and fell in love fast. Too fast.

My family loved him. His family did not take to me, or my family. Our engagment came like a fire, burning through our relationship at a time when I had resigned myself to not being engaged for many more months. You see, I had pushed our relationship from casual to serious by insisting that I wasn’t like other girls, and I didn’t want to live together before marriage and that I wanted kids right away and I didn’t want to wait to start my life. And it was scary for him. Because he wanted me. But not me. You see, he wanted the life I could offer him….parents that love him, a family that supported him, the world’s best puppy, a woman who would push him to be better and to do better. I have always had people pushing me in my life. My parents, my sister, my friends, my mentors, my roommates….I have always been pushed out of my comfort zone and out of my laziness to be a better person and to do better things with my life. I’ve never liked it, but it has led me to better things. And he has never been pushed. Ever.

Can I say that again? No one in his life has ever taken the time to push him into something he didn’t want to do. Not even when he was young. Ever.

Along comes this loud, bossy girl with a great family to push him around and he falls in love with the idea of a different life. He never loved me. He loved the idea of the life I could give him.

Do you see it?

I saw it. And I saw how his family treated me, and treated my family. And I saw how it made my family respond. I am not naive enough to think that marriage would be better when we were married. No, they would never be better.

And our relationship crumbled under the pressure from his family and my family, and the arguments---or rather my arguments and his silence. Our fragile bond couldn't withstand dealing with so much stress and when he refused to get a job--much less a high school diploma-- while I was working three jobs (one of them as a drama teacher where I was miserably trying to hold together a department that was being attacked on all sides), I knew I was not willing to live a life like that anymore. I ended our relationship two months after being engaged, just 7 months after we met. It was the worst few weeks of my life, when just a few days later, I resigned from my teaching job leaving my students behind. I have never felt so abandoned and so guilty, melding into the numb state I am in now. But time heals all wounds and at least it moves quickly.

Today I was supposed to walk down an aisle. The only aisle I walked down today was the aisle of the farmer’s market with my daddy, holding the world’s best puppy, looking at beautiful bouquets of sunflowers that I didn’t buy, and then I came home to the apartment I now live in by myself. I was rejected from my dream job at my alma mater because of my personality.  And Monday I will go to a job where I’m replaceable, but at least I have a job. And I’m alone and will probably be alone for a long time. But I tattooed a sunflower on my arm, cut off all my hair, and don’t have to starve myself to fit in a stupid dress.

I don’t think I will ever get to be a bride. But walking away from the marriage that should have happened tonight was still a choice I would make again. And every time I am struck with grief over the life I could have had, I remind myself that my reality is better than the reality that I would have been in, and the dream world I created around my non-wedding day today is just that...a dream.