everybody's looking for something

i, personally, am looking to let go. i need to drift away from the disappointments shrouding my life. well, maybe not shrouding, but putting a damper on my ability to take pleasure in other people's happiness.

i am jealous by nature. i always have been, always will be. i am not keen on sharing my friends. i envy other people, all the time. i grew up with no money, wearing hand me downs and homemade clothing that was never, ever, ever remotely in style. i never had the right shoes, the right bag, the right hair...nothing. that has made me an extremely insecure and envious person.

i had a nice wedding. i really did. it was at the national shrine of the little flower, the celebrant was the archbishop of detroit's secretary, the flowers were beautiful, and the reception was a champagne brunch at the birmingham community house. it was a nice wedding. my mom worked herself to the bone making sure it was proper and fitting for who we were and what our situation was. the situation being that i was 7 months pregnant, a member of the church choir, and she was the sacristan of the aforementioned national shrine.

it was a nice wedding. we, jason and i, are grateful for how nice it was and how much work went into planning it in a one and half month span of time. but, no matter how nice it was, i remember sitting crying on the floor of a david's bridal salon fitting room because no matter how hard we tried there was no way i would fit in a traditional dress. i remember my nerves being shot over whether or not i was offering to pay for enough things, or if the suggestions or requests i was making were inappropriate or somehow sounded ungrateful. i remember being told not to eat too much or i wouldn't fit into the handmade suit my mom made me to wear on my wedding day. i remember worrying that my mother would be upset because we were talking about living at his mom's for a little while until our house was ready to move into. i remember crawling into my mom's bed the night before the wedding and telling her we were going to live at his mom's house. i remember being on the phone with him in the middle of the night before our wedding crying that i just couldn't move into his mom's house, coming up with asinine excuses as to why i suddenly changed my mind. i remember being nauseated while having my hair done because it took so long and my abdomen was so crunched up that i could only sit for about 15 minutes at a time but i didn't say anything because i didn't want to be a pain. i remember begging jason's dad to go back in the sacristy of the church to make sure jason was there. i remember being nervous and uncomfortable and so freaking miserable. i remember thinking there was no way i would be able to make this up to my atheist husband. i remember all of the sudden having to pick a song to dance to, even though originally that was not the plan, out of a small group of jazz and classical standards that our pianist knew, and to this day jason has no idea what the song was. i remember my dad was so drunk that he had to be held up when he left the reception. i remember that it stormed that day.

i cannot let go of my wedding. we have a video recording that jason's late uncle jim made for us. it is so painful to watch, it really is.

we have often talked about annulling the marriage simply so we could get married again, the way we should have. or redoing it on a major anniversary, having a friend officiate the ceremony, have a big party, letting me wear a long white hued dress.

so the other night, i had this wonderful dream. i've had similar dreams before, but this one....this one was so vivid. it was as if we were starting over, but with the kids. i was not wearing a wedding ring, only my engagement ring. i was looking at dresses with my mom and isabel. and my mom was happy for me...imagine that! she was just smiling and saying how excited she was for us and she could really see how in love with one another we were. for some reason, jason and my dad were there as well and i remember my dad was happy and smiling. and i remember looking at jason and thinking how lucky i was and how much i loved him.

maybe this wouldn't have been a dream if the birth control hadn't failed or my parents had ever actually said they liked jason. which is one thing i still can't figure out. i thought initially it was because he broke my heart twice and they weren't really up for round three of that nightmare, but it seemed to go deeper than that. so many things have gotten in the way of them trying to be happy for us, i suppose. the decision to no longer attend mass, our decision to be free thinkers, the temporary disintegration of my parents' marriage, jason standing up for me when i cannot do it myself, jason refusing to be a scapegoat for my family, my mom calling him a prick while holding his children...so many things that have led us to be the couple we are today, the people and parents we are today. so many things that are hard to move forward from.

it makes me sad.

i have spoken more to the members of my immediate family this week than i have in months. i don't know if it has anything to do with jason being out of town for work or that my mom just turned 50. you pick.

this all makes me sad. and determined. i am determined to stop with the envy, it isn't healthy. if i need something to celebrate my marriage to the love of my life, then i am the only one who can do anything about it.

let's get planning.