EMMA'S DIARY
Dear Diary,
Pain that runs so deep that merely looking at my dress hanging there, even this very day cuts through me so deeply that I can’t even bring myself to hold it to my heart or body for that matter. I touch it from a safe distance. My dress is beautiful, it really is. The memories of my wedding day, however, are not. I swear that shortly after saying the vows that should last me a lifetime I have wanted to run and have been running ever since, sounds like there's a movie in that somewhere….haha. Somehow it seems the events that unfolded, paved the way for my marriage and all that it was to become. Run I did, not physically but emotionally. I ran as emotionally far away from my husband as you can get. But I guess it's more like a treadmill workout, the scenery is the same, I keep moving and running but getting nowhere. The wedding of a bride with two bottles of champagne in by midday (the time of the ceremony) was never going to be straightforward, but believe it or not, I felt well walking down the aisle even throughout the vows. It was the rest of the day that was, which I now know to be so traumatic. To this day we still have never printed even one wedding photograph off, we have still never picked photos for the album that we have never collected yet paid for, it is all just a bit too painful and a bit too tinged with lost hope and regret. God knows what the poor photographer thinks…..Eight years no album pick up! Between the in laws deciding they were leaving early on account of us not inviting a toxic family member, to the
much detested (by me) best man using the C bomb in his speech and just being his usual shit of a self. To my dress becoming too big and my massive boobs bobbing everywhere and me ending up looking, or at least feeling like trash. To asking certain people to leave and finally, opening the presents and cards, hungover the next morning without my husband (who was asleep next to me) because I was still drunk and thought that's what we were supposed to do. No sharing of memories, not talking about the night or the fun. None of the usually loved up married shit you do. As soon as we opened our eyes the onslaught of misery began. I swear that by that next morning, I had completely ran out of love. Like I had been emptied of my soul somehow. That makes me sad. So very sad. It has now been years of resentment, years of anger, unjust and blame. Shortly after the wedding my emotions were erratic, the pain was too much, I was too alone, physically and metaphorically. I made late night calls to people, crying, wailing in fact and found no way of getting out of the trapped pain and anger.I am sure they were all worried but never said so. Or I don’t remember them saying so because wine made sure of that. I screeched, threatened divorce and became consumed with anger and despair.
My wedding dress that I have worn twice hangs on the curtain rail in my living room window. It has been done for several weeks now since starting with Marie Kondo’s ‘Spark Joy’, whereby you sort through ALL of your belongings and discard anything that doesn't’ spark joy. I am not up to the part of the book where I look at the sentimental items, yet the dress is here. I’m not entirely sure how it got there or why as I am two stages away from this section. I have worn it twice, once on my wedding day and once during an evening of alone drinking whilst my daughter was asleep and when the trauma of my wedding had become so excruciating that I believed a bottle of wine and by putting the dress on again it would somehow heal all of my wedding wounds. That, of course, was not what happened but still, I am here to tell the tale and so are the selfies I took of that night alone. I keep them as a reminder of the agony I recall feeling. Back to the wedding dress. Kon Marie tells you to hold items (every single item) close to your heart, close your eyes and breathe it in. Then ask yourself what the feeling is. Is it joy?If it is joy you keep the item.If it isn't any other emotion but joy you thank it for its service and off in the ether it goes. And Marie Kondo means business. Although I am not up to sentimental items yet (the last stage), looking at my dress hanging there in all its lace and beautiful glory I do not have to hold it anywhere near my heart to know that it does not bring me joy. In fact it brings me a bucket load of fucking pain.
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