“well, you're married so of course you feel other married people are similar to you”
Instead…
I feel…
Like I’m not married. (Like you're not married, you said?)
Like I'm too cool for that. (Like you're too cool for that, you said?)
And, though it doesn't usually keep me up at night
there are moments (like now) in which I can't help but wonder
WHY?
And my conclusion (more or less), is that our conceptions of marriage are very different.
For you, getting married is exactly what we did: We went to the office thingie. We signed a paper. We had lunch with our parents and a few close friends and then we went back to the house we already lived in. We went back to the jobs we already worked at and we went back to the life we already had.
but
For me, getting married is having your boyfriend fry his brains to find an original way to (so help me God) "pop the question"
and planning a wedding
And a bachelorette party
In freaking Can-Cun or Vegas
or some nonsensical place like that
It's having to choose centerpieces
and paying a ton of money for a dress you only get to wear once.
Choosing a menu
and a playlist
and dancing
and finally...
having a wedding
and NOT drinking because
THERE IS NOTHING MORE HORRIBLE, DEMEANING, AND PITIFUL THAN A DRUNK BRIDE.
IT IS THE MOST SPECIAL DAY OF YOUR LIFE AND YOU MUST REMEMBER IT.
and you must look flawless
and everyone must be happy
and everything must be perfect
What's wrong with me? Why do I disdain this?
I see pictures of people getting married (which do include everything I just mentioned) and, when the topic comes up I always say : " Oh, I respect people who choose to have a big wedding,; I just didn't want one for myself"
What a load of crap!
I do not respect them.
I pity them.
I look down on them
I'm secretly angry at them for reasons I have not yet come to comprehend
but most importantly,
I
fear
them
I fear them because the fact that they chose to have the wedding I was supposed to have according to what my family and society has been teaching me to believe for the last 33 years must mean that there is something utterly, unequivocally wrong with me.
It makes me feel there's something wrong with me.
That no one in their sane mind would let go of such an opportunity
It can only mean that I wasn't truly in love if I decided against it.
It must have been because I wasn't sure
"I'd give it a year or two"
People say you mustn't pay attention to other's expectations
That you must only do what makes you happy
And so I did.
but the fact that I cannot look at wedding pictures and internally react to them the same way I react to a picture depicting a building does seem...interesting to say the least.
It makes me think that having divorced parents does screw you up in ways you never even knew.
No matter how hard you tried to convince yourself that you were different.
That you had it all nailed down.
That you were better than that.
And I, myself, alone might not be better than that but WE are
I don't feel married because ours is nothing like the marriages I can think of
The marriages I was trained for
The marriages in which you’d come with me to Ivy’s Christmas party
And I’d go with you to Alondra’s farewell party
Even when neither one of us actually wanted to
The marriage in which I’d buy you a present for your birthday and you’d bring me flowers on our first anniversary.
Or earrings
or a bracelet.
Instead.
We bought a projector.
We paid for it half and half
And we bought it because you said that, in the future, no matter where we were going to,
we could bring it with us
and it would mean that we didn't even need to buy a TV
and that I could also use it to teach wherever I was gonna teach next
And, isn't that the coolest type of marriage one can get?