Most girls dream of their wedding day.  We teach our daughters that it is the day they can be a princess and it is their most important day ever in life, period.

I was never one to but into all of that.  I am mostly marriage neutral, even though I’ve been engaged twice.

 

My first fiance was Michael, and that was a relationship that was never going to work.  My second was a lot more recent and one that I thought for serious though would last until death did us part.

In the decades – yes decades plural – since Michael I thought  less and less of marriage.  At some point I even decided that I would never get married.  Then someone came along and changed that, and my eternal no transformed into a yes.

Those rings were bought for me in 2007.  I was thinner then, and didn’t have to lube up to get them on.  He was ready then.  I don’t think I was, but if asked I know to him I would not have said no.  Things happened though, and we went our separate ways.  It even got ugly enough along the way for us to end up in a courtroom.

When I left the court that day I swore never again.  Never lasted until November 8, 2010.  That was the day he collared me in a private ceremony.  All of the dreams I’d stopped believing in were happening.

I was living the life I’d given up on and assigned to others.  I was finally free.

Freedom comes with a price though, and what I was asked to pay seemed so steep when the register rung.  It still feels too expensive at times but those times are further apart than they used to be in these parts.

When I made the announcement I never shared the date.  I didn’t want to make a big deal of it, and I certainly did not want it to turn into an event. The decision was about the two of us  – the relationship was about the two of us – the marriage would be about the two of us.  I was unwilling to invite anyone into that part of us.  The absolute most intimate part, where there was someone – someplace who could get me to say yes.

It was always going to be November 8, 2013 though.

Today.

By this time I was supposed to be Mrs. __________ .

Yes I’ve shed a few tears today, but not nearly as many as I thought I would.  Shit there are likely more tears to come as the weeks and months accumulate.

Although today was supposed to be my wedding day to the man I loved for most of my adult life, I still stand.

Like still goes on.

Perhaps one day there will be someone else exceptional enough to compel the yes.  In the meantime though I remember today and what could have been.

I don’t dwell, I simply use my happy memories as a reminder that it IS possible.  Yes, even for me, and that is something that makes me smile, through the tears.

 

Aphrodite Brown