bridezilla

When J and I got engaged last fall he told me that he expected—and would tolerate—a couple infamous anne freak-outs. He was clear about this: I was allowed a total of two meltdowns. Meltdowns could entail my telling him that I didn’t want to get married, swearing that I was perfectly sure that I didn’t want to get married. They could—though probably shouldn’t—include my sending back my engagement ring and refusing to discuss it. J, who is patient beyond all measure with me, knew that I needed a very wide berth if I was going to get through the whole process of coming to this major commitment.

But a funny thing happened when he gave me all this latitude. I didn’t seem to need it at all. In fact, save for a very brief inability to talk about the engagement, I did just fine for months and months and months. I was doing so well with it all, in fact, that I kept saying to him, “I mean can you believe I’m this calm?” He’d smile and we’d go on our way to get shrimp tacos.

That was before.

In the last few days, my cool, my calm has broken. I had epic, loud, and writhing meltdowns each of the last two nights. The first was about my desire for a communal song during the ceremony—a kind of kumbaya moment of collective vocal embrace—which J thinks is a lousy idea. He’s probably right. The second was about my desire for a second white wine, an alternative to the cases of chardonnay that my father bought and that anyone under 60 will likely scoff at. Neither of these things is essential. Neither of them is even that important. Both of them are mostly ridiculous. And here’s the thing: I knew this as I screamed—really actually screamed—at J. But my whole body felt totally furious. At one second I wanted to belt him and at the next I never wanted to see him again. And this went on and on and on.

As I marched out of the apartment, I struggled to make sense of it all.

A conversation with a friend helped me articulate what’s been happening in the last couple days. The way I described it to her was as the feeling of being consumed bodily with tremendous emotion. Sometimes I could point intellectually to the feeling as that of fear or anger, but mostly it just felt like too much feeling in every cell of my body.

It’s ugly and people don’t really want to hear about it.

After all, so much of getting married is about matching and comparing—contrasting and resisting—your felt experience to all the models of blissful nuptials that come into your field of vision everyday. All the planning is about reconciling desire with reality, and now I have to fight to stay grounded. I have to struggle not to wallop the sewing machine repair man or J or my mother, all of whom are trying to help and all of whom hardly recognize me.

And mostly I have to make room to feel, whatever feelings they may be and try not to destroy J in the process. Getting married is a big step for me, a really big step. For the last decade or so I’ve lived with the belief that the next best thing is right around the corner and I’d better run as fast as I can away from the now to get to it. That desire has mostly subsided over the last few years, but letting go of it completely feels pretty scary but also like the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.

I just need to remind myself of that.