Recent complications in my personal life, along with the very distinct hatred I currently feel for the dress, have managed to cloud that confident self-image I had two weeks ago. When the wedding took place, it had an element of public spectacle to it, but it was also a very real and sincere commitment ceremony, and I experienced it with the honest desire to commit to loving myself. I held on to that feeling for a while, but for the moment it's lost. Instead, I feel bogged down by loneliness and self-hatred, and while a lot of it is related to forces beyond me, some of it is actually this dress and the disappointment I witness every time I tell someone I didn't get married to a man.
Every time I'm out in public, I'm reminded about the pedestal that we put marriage on. Yesterday I ran into the grocery store and when I came back out there was a random woman talking to my friends who were waiting in the car. When I got to the car, she said "Oh! I just wanted to wish you congratulations!... And I hope you two are happy together forever!" I replied "Well thanks! I married myself, so I have a feeling we will indeed be together forever." Her face sank and she hesitated. When she finally spoke again, all she could say was "okaaaay." No more "congratulations."
She had initially thought that I was on the path towards fulfilling my ultimate purpose of taking care of a man and bearing his children, and when she learned that there was no man, it was as if I had shattered all of her hopes and dreams for my future, and her future, and the future of Americans everywhere. All of a sudden, I was just another waste of space, another woman without value or meaning.
***
A comment from Jules:
"What you're doing is awesome, I can't thank you enough. My sister just got married and my family is making me feel like crap because I don't have a boyfriend and never had one that lasted more than 3 months, making me feel like a spinster at 21! It's crazy, just because my mother, grandmother, and all my aunts and cousins got married before the age of 22, they think I should be too or else I'm cursed to become a tragic Sex & The City character.
It's just so annoying, I recently completed my first novel and am in the process of publishing it, and my mother doesn't give a damn and worst of all isn't proud of me but instead ashamed of me. My sister on the other hand, when she got engaged, my mother bragged about it to the whole world, and the whole family revolved around that till seventh months and then after the wedding it's still talked about. I just hate it how she and my family views getting married and having babies as a great achievement that would make me worthy, and not completing a novel.
Anyways, thank you, and also you should rent the movie Muriel's Wedding, it's about the same issues of marriage that you're taking a stand against. "
Saturday, April 19
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I keep getting one of two responses to my commitment plans. Either Oh your so young or the congrats you must be so happy.
I dont know if I have ever told you this, but I think that you are a completely amazing woman for what you are doing and for just being you.
Congrats on your two week anniversary.
-SC
Dear Irina,
Yes, mucho congrats on your 2 week anniv. Every marriage has it's elements of let down, hatred, disgust and depression. What you're feeling is quite normal. It's interesting that the exciting ceremony and party doesn't really affect the relationship at all. You still have to work on whatever you need to work on. You and the person you marry are still who you always were.
Remember, you married yourself, not the dress! Don't forget what it really is about. That might help you in your interactions with the public. Although your public action to wear the dress for 30 days almost makes it seem like you married the public for a short time. Don't worry, you can divorce the public in 2 more weeks!!!!!!!!!
What this is bringing up for me, is the conflict between a basically very private interaction and your choice to make it a public one. Every one thinks it is their business. It is also painfully clear by people's reactions to you that how we interact with eachother every day is filled with automatic interactions and reactions that have nothing to do with what is actually staring us in the face. It seems like many people don't want to be confronted with a different meaning than the one they perceive. Too bad for them, but that is what performance art is all about, particularly the kind that surprises people in their own habitat, versus the kind taking place in a theater where, no matter how controversial, the people observing it still chose to be there.
Keep on keepin' on, you gutsy woman!
Willow (official insomniac, and the [slightly] older woman who talked to you outside at roller derby when you gave me the invitation to this blog).
Post a Comment