One day in 2009, Halloween to be exact, my mom and I went shopping at the mall and began looking for wedding dresses. Let me set the scene: My ex-boyfriend and I had been together over one year and he wanted to move in together. I did not. I have written about him before … He’s the douchebag that I lived with, and broke up with me over text message. Yup, that happened. Anyway, we moved in together after all and things were going well, and when he told me he wanted to marry me, I said sure. The conversation pretty much went like this:
So … Ummm … Yes, that’s how the conversation went. I mentioned it to my mom a few months later and here we were in the mall on Halloween looking at wedding dresses. First we went to Saks. My mom wanted to buy me one of those ten thousand dollar wedding dresses, and I thought that was the craziest idea ever, because who the hell really needs a dress that costs that much? I had the brilliant (but not highly-favored by her) idea to go over to the David’s Bridal store across the mall parking lot and just, well, grab something.
When I walked into the store the saleswoman immediately approached us and started asking me so many questions, and at such a speedy rate, that I just nodded yes to everything. Literally, anything she asked, said, or did, I just said yes! I don’t know why I became so discombobulated when she was firing all of these questions and suggestions at me, but I did. I honestly felt scared. Remember when you were little and your parents would turn off the light in your room, and you’d look over at your closet, knowing nothing was really in there, but convincing yourself that something or someone was? That’s how I felt. Like there was this monster inside the closet and I couldn’t figure out why.
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The salesgirl immediately took me to a rack of dresses and then proceeded to tell my mom and I that they were all on a six-month free finance charge plan, if you open a credit card with the store. She quickly asked me my size and pulled out about five dresses. Asking me which ones I liked, and I again stood there silently nodding yes or no, and looking at my mom to save me. Seriously you guys, I felt like that monster in my closet was getting closer to grabbing me and I just wanted my mom to be my rescuer. Going into the dressing room I began to actually feel excitement, but it was that excited feeling of trying on a gown, which I had never done before. Well, not since prom anyway!
I stepped out of the dressing room in a few choices waiting for my mom to start crying like all the mom’s do on those wedding dress TV shows. You know, the girl comes out in her gown and everyone crumbles into pools of tears and she says, “Yes!” to the dress … Well, that didn’t happen and I didn’t really feel anything either. I tried on a strapless taffeta gown that I thought was pretty and said to my mom and the saleswoman that I liked the dress, and that I would wear it if I were to get married. After changing out of it the saleswoman leads us to the counter and says we should fill out these forms, and my mom and I did. She says, “Great! You’ve been approved, let me just wrap this up for you!” I stared at my mom and she stared at me. Our eyes were so wide, but neither one of us said anything verbally. Really, both of us looked at each other with paralyzing fear. No joke, 10 minutes later as we walked back to the car with my wedding gown in hand I turn to my mom and blurt out, “What the hell?! Why didn’t you say anything? Why do I have this dress?!” My mom just answered that she was waiting for me to say no. She was right, I’m an adult, and I should have stopped this craziness.
I hid the dress from my boyfriend the entire time we lived together by keeping it in my closet at my parents’ house. The idea of getting married faded as quickly as it started. He cheated, hid a porn addiction, lied constantly, and I moved out 11 months after moving in with D. I never really wanted to move in with him, but I thought it was just me being a jerk and pushing him away. It wasn’t. It was my intuition telling me he was not the one for me. Just like when my intuition tried to tell me to get the hell out of that bridal store, but I didn’t listen. In reality the dress was never really the issue, it was just a Band-aid I put on a growing wound. Tonight, I put the gown on eBay because I need it out of my life. It’s been over three years and I had just left it hanging up in the back of my closet never even removing the tags from it. Letting go of the dress surprisingly does not hurt, but makes me feel very hopeful and happy about my future.
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