#30. I always loved Nancy Drew

I finalized arrangements today to make a trip to visit Momma. aside from taking off work, seeing my family and escaping this dismal weather, I’m also excited because this trip will be the first dress fitting! wait, what’s that you say? what’s the deal with having a fitting a year out from the wedding? and where the heck did this dress come from, anyway . . . I don’t remember her going shopping or anything . . . to you who are suddenly thinking I’m crazy, I say, you’re absolutely right. I probably am crazy.

you’re also right about the Mystery of the Suddenly Appearing Wedding Gown, Nancy Drew, I haven’t talked about going shopping. no, you didn’t miss it. well, actually, you did. it was almost 4 years ago. and yes, I probably am crazy, but not in the way you’re thinking.

see, this dress, that I have a picture of somewhere . . . I’ll rustle it up for you . . . (ooh, how texan of me: rustle up) this dress, I love. with every fiber, I love it – its smooth simplicity, the weight of the gown on my body, how glamorous I feel wearing it . . . I love this dress. I vaguely mentioned earlier that I have worked in a bridal store; that is where this dress was purchased. I however, did not mention earlier that I have been engaged before. true story. this is not my first venture into this whole wedding planning stuff. I’ve done a lot of this stuff before.

his name is boy wonder and he was my very best friend for a long time. there is too much to say about what happened, what went wrong, so I won’t say it. I will say that when the relationship started to sour, he proposed. and I stupidly accepted, thinking it could fix things. it didn’t. at the end, it became so clear that he was very much a boy, not ready to be grown, and I had already moved so far past him that there was no catching up. and at the very very end, I realized that I had known this all along.

the hardest part of the whole thing is that in every decision I make, there is the ghost of the “last time” lurking in the shadows. I want to have cupcakes, but that’s what I wanted “last time” too . . . and thinking of them makes me think of boy wonder and how we loved “frost your own cupcake day” in the cafeteria. I want to walk down the aisle to Hallelujah (probably Jeff Buckley rather than Rufus Wainright) but I know I fell in love with the harmonies when boy wonder played it on the piano. and this brings me to the dress and the insanely early fittings . . .

when Rock & I get married, I will be wearing the dress I purchased to wear to marry another man. Momma has let me know this is weird. but I love this dress. I fell in love with it on my third day of work. I love this dress. Rock has let me know that he understands. (and that he doesn’t think it’s weird) I love Rock. but I do want to make some changes to the dress to make it truly mine and truly a part of our wedding.

enter Momma’s best friend, an amazingly talented seamstress and fabric artist. (seriously. she MADE her daughter-in-law’s wedding gown. from scratch, by hand, no pattern, in raw italian silk. that she went to italy to buy. She also embroidered a few exquisite fall leaves on the train and on the veil. she’s uh-MAZ-ing.) My design plus her skills will (hopefully) equal one super awesome dress! Momma’s friend is a professor she has an open expanse of time during the summer for personal projects. And I’m her personal project this summer! After the fitting/brainstorm design session I will bring you actual pictures & details & everything. I hope I can bring myself to cut into it . . .

#18. absent

I haven’t written much lately . . . and it’s not for lack of things to say, I actually have some exciting stuff to talk about (we picked a place! practice centerpiece pictures!) but I just haven’t been feeling it . . .

I’ve felt restless, disorganized, melancholy, stressed . . . and I’m not exactly sure why. I just feel so dissatisfied . . .

not because of Rock, god no, though we have been bickering. he’s the best thing that ever happened to me and without him I would be completely adrift.

not because of mom, though I certainly have reason! (also, drama with momma & the location. details to follow . . . )

not because of work or grad school or money or wedding planning or our lemon of a house . . . even though all those things stress me out mightily, it seems to run so much deeper than that . . .

and yesterday, on the way home from work, a familiar but long-lost song came on my ipod and I couldn’t help but sing. loudly. and right there I figured it all out . . . I couldn’t remember the last time I opened my mouth to sing out loud. at all, much less in praise of Him. and I just started bawling right there in the car just off of highway 20. I don’t remember the last time I did something creative. I can’t remember the last time I touched my sewing machine, pulled a charcoal across a page, mixed up watercolors – even picked up a crayon! and my heart is so heavy with that realization. I feared that moving to texas would cause me to lose some of who I was, but truthfully, it started long before I packed the first box.

this weekend. I’m making a dress. I have to make a change.