I sold my wedding dress.

A piece on a piece of a much larger story.

I sell my wedding dress and it is something that I do not want to do. 

If this were a movie, it would be an empowering day.  I would invite my girlfriends over. We would call men names while we drank champagne and cheers to the fact that I had dodged a bullet. I would shed a few pretty tears and have a great blowout. I would take the money and do something sexy and empowering. It would be the start of a montage where I start by exercising and end up taking the world by storm. Upbeat music would play in the background. I would not look back. 

I sell my wedding dress in real life and I am on the ground. I phone a friend to take it from my closet because it is so beautiful I cannot bear to touch it but also cannot stop touching it. I want to write a lovely note in the package to wish this bride well but I can’t find the generosity for her. She will walk down an aisle and someone will be there who is happy to see her happy in a dress that makes her happy. She will be happy. That’s generous enough. 

I sell my wedding dress in real life and I feel like I am being ripped in half because I know that it has been months and days since he has gone and I still hope that he will call. I know that if I opened the door and found him there I would move aside and let him in. He is not there so I will ache and breathe and move. I will not do sexy montage things. I will stay soft and go slow and be vulnerable. I will not take the world by storm because I am not that girl anymore. I am still a force but not a hurricane. 

I sell my wedding dress and I am touching the field of wildflowers that is embroidered into the sleeves. I am saying goodbye to a day that exists inside me where I am blushing and nervous and striving. I am saying goodbye to a me where this had never happened and I did not know what would come. I am saying goodbye to me trying that dress on for the first time, wondering if I will ever feel worthy enough to fill it. 

My friend takes the package from my home like it is a bomb because it is. It is sealed, taped, quieted, and neutralized. 

She holds my face and speaks to all the possibilities for that money, the memories this dress could pay for. 

I would take every dollar and light it on fire to have this turn out differently. 

It is not a profit but on paper. 

This is a net loss. 

We all lost.

“I know,” she says. 

To my surprise, this is a stake in the ground. When I look at this moment it is as if I am above me. My spirit is looking down at me pooled on the floor and my daughter is hiding in her bedroom, afraid of the wild animal howling in the living room. Something moves inside me. 

Somewhere out there going about his day is a man who knows that he has caused this much pain. He will know that he has the power to move mountains, gift apologies, make amends, and breathe reconciliation into women he was given to cherish. Every day he will be 16 miles away and know how we are suffering, and every day he will consciously choose to let us hurt. 

That man is not my husband. 

That is not my fate. 

I am finally grateful. 

❤️