PolyArchive

I started dating him when I was too young and stupid to know that just because someone thinks you’re loveable does not mean you should devote your entire life to him and ignore the fact that he’s a manipulative rat bastard* who hates your friends and family…
There is nothing worse than wanting desperately to be out of a relationship and thinking you don’t have the strength or means to get out.

There is still a Jessica McClintock quinceanera dress in a USPS Medium Flat Rate box somewhere among my possessions. I paid $14 on eBay for it. It has slight pit stainage, which I didn’t know when I bought it. I was too depressed to fight the seller, and somehow it seemed fitting anyway. Long after I ended the engagement, I asked my mother’s trusted dry cleaner to treat the stains, and in a scene straight from a sitcom they ruined the sequins and then pretended not to understand English when I complained. Later at home that wintry afternoon, my mother asked me to try the dress on for her. It was one of the more painful moments of my life. I am glad and grateful that it was not the last wedding dress she saw me wear.

Now that the dress not only has yellowed underarms but shineless sequins (how’s that for a metaphor?) I would never try to sell it to anyone, but I have thought of burning it many times. I hate the wastefulness of it though–sometimes I wonder what else I could cut it up and make it into, as if that would ransom the ruined years of my life. Then I think how the style actually kinda looked good on me, and maybe I should hone my sewing skills to copy the pattern in another fabric. So it sits in the box, waiting for a critical mass of destructiveness or craftiness or mythical skills to well up within me.

*I hesitated quoting the phrase “rat bastard” here, in the spirit of G-ratedness, but if anyone deserves to be called names, abusive ex-boyfriends do. But then the more I thought about the phrase, the more ridiculous it seems; I’m picturing little rat weddings and legitimate rat babies in prams. Then I remember that I am writing about weddings in a serious and un-cute context. Sigh. Rats have it easy, not having to deal with emotional baggage.