The weather permits minimal clothing, and I'm taking full advantage. I feel incredibly comfortable in my own skin, which is kind of new for me.
Scraps of white satin and lace - left over from lining my wedding album - hang on the closet door beside my very brown dress. The petticoats and veil lie huddled below it like fluffy white roadkill.
I feel light and liberated.
Tuesday, May 6
For The Time Being...
Monday, May 5
Sunday, May 4
The End is Nigh!
It's not like I'm counting or anything (cough, ahem) but in about 22 hours I will be removing the dress and the veil, and the shackles that go with them. I'll continue to update the blog, because there's still more to say, but I'll probably be doing it in jeans and a t-shirt from now on.
I've decided against any closing ceremony, because the truth is that nothing changes when the dress comes off. I'll still be committed to loving myself, and it'll still be a daily struggle. I'll still desire the love of others, and I'll still question those desires constantly. I'll still take time to consider and explore cultural norms about love, self-worth, oppression, heteronormative "rules," ceremonies, costumes, tradition...
I'm just going to take the dress and veil off, and hang them up in my closet. For the time being, I'll keep them nearby, as a reminder. In the long term, who knows what I'll do with them. In a way, it doesn't matter what I do with the clothes. The real question is, what will I do with ME?
The short answer is that at 8pm tomorrow I'll drink a glass of celebratory champagne and perhaps enjoy a victory lap around campus in my underwear. Maybe. We'll see. The long answer is, when I get out of this dress, I'm going to spend every moment of every day trying to live a life that I truly love.
Saturday, May 3
No More Ms. Havisham
With less than three days left, it seems this project has nearly come full circle. On April 6th, my first day as a newlywed, I wrote:
I haven't really gotten into how this project came about, but one very big part of it is my relationship with a young man named Adam. Adam and I have known each other for seven years, and although it's been on-and-off, we spent a lot of the last seven years in a romantic relationship. The last year and a half has been particularly tumultuous, because he's back in New York and I spend the academic year in New Mexico. But through all the trials and tribulations, I truly thought we were going to end up together. We casually talked about getting married. The way that fate had kept us in each other's lives, it seemed like ultimately we were meant to be together. I hate the idea of destiny, but that's really what it felt like.
However, for one reason or another, he has recently decided to cut me out of his life. As of three months ago, he's stopped taking or returning my calls. He won't even reply to my e-mails. I know he's alive, although I wasn't sure for a while. I haven't gotten an explanation, and I have no idea what's going on. All I know is that my heart is broken, and that seven years of history warrants an explanation at the very least. At some moments this dress reminds me that I'm free and I'm really okay without him, but the truth is right now it just reminds me that he's not here and there's nothing I can do about it.
Well. As of this evening, that's not really an issue anymore:
Irina-
I'm sorry that I didn't do this much, much sooner.
I know that I've always been sort of your indentured servant. There for you at beck and call whenever you snapped your fingers.
I have to tell you that J---- means more to me right now then you ever did. That is why I dropped off the face of the Earth. I am completely unable to keep you in my life, while at the same time trying to progress in my life with her.
I never made you fully aware of the scope and range of my relationship with J----. We had/have been living together since August 07. I loved her then and I love her now more than I thought capable.
I write this email not to hurt you, but to let you know where I stand.
If anything we ever had meant anything to you, please do not contact me. I need this to be over so badly, that I had to drop contact. I respect you enough to let you know my side, and I sincerely hope that you respect me enough to let this end here and now.
Adam
OUCH.
I feel shattered. After seven years of history, I'm hurt, angry, shocked, confused... But as this project comes to a close, a part of me sees that the forces of the universe are still working in my favor.
As some of you may recall, the reason I chose April 5th through May 5th is that these are the first and last days of Nisan, the Jewish month of rebirth and freedom from bondage. No matter how broken and lonely and foolish I feel, Adam's timing couldn't really have been more perfect, as it will allow me to fully realize my own rebirth and be truly free as I had originally hoped. I imagine that many of the next 65 hours will be spent in mourning, but with this final piece in place, I know that when I remove this dress for the last time, I really will be emerging as a free woman.
So thank you Adam for finally setting me free. And thank you Universe for showing me that I'm ready.
Thursday, May 1
May We Be Happy, Peaceful, and Light
A longtime family friend, Susan, wrote me a wonderful e-mail about the project, saying:
"....I thought of the metta prayer when I read your premise. It is the buddhist mantra of loving kindness and it begins with loving yourself. The mantra is repeated as you direct it to other beings, some you know and others you may not, some human, some animal. it's a practice. but it begins with love and kindness for you. so I would love to add it to your experience...
May I be happy, peaceful and light.
May I be safe from injury.
May I be free from anger and fear, afflictions and anxieties.
May I look upon myself with understanding and love.
May I touch the seeds of joy in me.
May I learn to recognize the source of delusion in me."
Considering the tone of my last couple entries, I'm thinking it's time to start owning this mantra.
Another wonderful photo from Leslie Sakal.
Wednesday, April 30
De-Pressed
Today I got some amazing press from prominent local journalist Zane Fischer in The Santa Fe Reporter. (For those of you who are reading this from New York, the Reporter is Santa Fe's version of the Village Voice. In other words, it's a big deal.) As with most journalism, I have some minor complaints, but overall I would say that his critique is spot-on, and his major questions about it mirror my own feelings of frustration and struggle with the project. Also, Mr. Fischer is known for being brutally honest in his columns, so the simple fact that he didn't tear me to pieces is something to be proud of.
So why have I spent the evening depressed and mostly in tears?...
Because I thought I was going to see a boy tonight and he never called me.
Seriously. How DUMB is that?!
I'm doing well in my classes, I have an amazing job lined up for the summer, my family and friends are priceless, I'M IN THE NEWSPAPER... and still I'm an emotional train wreck because I didn't get one stupid phone call. I barely know this guy, and our interactions have been nothing but casual. Plus you'd think after 22 years of social interaction, I'd be able to handle the situation a little more gracefully. It's not like I haven't been through this (and much worse) before, and yet somehow it's still enough to mess up my whole day. WHY?
My reaction is so automatic and even visceral that I have to wonder if maybe I'm really just wired this way. In the class I'm taking on evolution and biodiversity, we often talk about evolutionary fitness simply as an individual's ability to pass on its genetic material. And in a scientific context, I totally buy that... as it applies to other animals. But now the tables are turned and I'm the individual in question: is all this superfluous emotion simply an instinctual reaction to this absent boy as an indicator of my current lack of evolutionary fitness?
In the introduction to The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir very critically points out the common patriarchal understanding that "woman has ovaries, a uterus: these peculiarities imprison her in her subjectivity... It is often said that she thinks with her glands." Reading that, I can't help but laugh at the absurdity of it... and yet, here I am, seemingly a slave to my own reproduction-related emotions.
I'm sure a million and one dead feminists are rolling over in their graves as I ask this question, but am I genetically doomed to bemoan every non-existent phone call from now until my ovaries shrivel up and hot flashes take over everything? Is it possible that I'm just chemically programmed to suffer from extreme self-loathing until I find a mate?
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