Dance.

When you are engaged to be married, you enter a whole new world.

The world of “The Wedding”.

It’s both an exciting and scary world. Exciting because you’re planning a huge party with a lot of  little details that can make your party with all your friends and family shout “youness” from the rooftops. But also scary because it’s so easy to get, well, obsessed. And there are so many things you simply did not know about. Not to mention all of the new vocabulary.

Having now cancelled my wedding only a month ago, these are all freshly learned. Still taking up valuable real estate in  the front of my brian. The other night, a girlfriend came over and we sat on the patio one last time. She’s both a good friend and was a to-be bridesmaid. Not to mention my distraction from real life for the evening.

After she left, I was feeling…. good. Good might not sound like something to celebrate, but fuelled by good music (Florence and the Machine), and a few Bud Light Limes, there I was, dancing in my underwear.

Surrounded by boxes, memories and empty cupboards, I danced in front of the mirror, rediscovering how my body moves until I was out of breath.

And out of nowhere, the words “Wedding dress storage”* popped into my head. Behind me, in a hollowed out speaker turned storage unit, was my wedding dress. Folded in half, in the grey plastic bag from the tailor. And without really thinking about it, I took the dress out and put it on. I foudn my red wedding shoes and slipped them on. then I turned up the stereo and danced in front of the mirror.

And it was fun.

I jumped and spun and swayed. And I imagined how it would have looked on teh wedding day. It threw me for a loop too. Not because it made me sad or mad. But more for how I wasn’t sad anymore.

When you come to that concrete undisputable realization of what the right decision is for you, it’s hard to wallow. Because you know you’ve done the scary thing of making the right move no matter how difficult or painful.

I danced. And I imagined, I remembered. And then I let it go.

I’m not saying my heart doesn’t ache, or that I won’t cry any more. But I let go of the lingering questions about how my future would have looked like as his wife.

I have yet to move out of our now ghost ridden apartment. There are some very painful and awkward moments to come. I wish I could fastforward pas the first time we see each other, and then see each other with dates. But seeing as how that is, sadly, impossible, it has to happen. It’s the nature of life post-relationship.

But twirling aroudn in my wedding dress, that mirror showed me something else too. I caught a glimpse of me. The me I feel I let slip away over the last three years. And that long lost woman is strong, and independant. Most importantly, though, she’s happy.

PS- please note: If you do decide to do the never-worn wedding dress dance, may I suggest the following

-a couple of stiff drinks

-music that puts a smile on your lips and a rhythm in your hips

-keep dancing as you take the dress off and put it back o the hanger and intot he bag. As you fold it up and put it back in the speaker. Keep dancing because it will help keep the dark clouds at bay.

*I had no idea until a few months ago that how you store your wedding dress is apparently vitally important. I’m sure the wedding pros out there would shudder to see how mine is stuffed into a speaker box with winter boots and mementos of a life now left behind. But I think it’s happy in there. Hibernating until I find something to do with it. I am determined that I will wear it someday, for some event. Maybe it will eventually turn into a halloween costume, or get dyed and become a party dress. For now the speaker is its home, but one day it will hang in my closet again.

Whoa.

Do a little dance...

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but we don’t have a television. And that suits me just fine because it means I have to find other ways of filling my time. But it does also mean that I didn’t get to see the above as it happened. As I hear it, it was at the end of the debate and McCain couldn’t figure out which way to go around the table.  I keep picturing him doing the same little dance at home in front of the mirror, and then I shudder a little. Either way, it’s quite funny.