I was amazed to discover how much more powerful I had become as a person. There followed a strange and surreal time of fear, ceremony, and closure.
I AM A MASTER AT THE REFRAME FULL
I hadn’t taken the time to consider that because he had originally paid for the ticket, my full itinerary would be emailed to him! When I arrived at the airport, ready to visit friends and celebrate the wedding, Dorian was waiting for me. In the same way I had rebuilt my life with resourcefulness and creativity, this dress had gone from a generic, innocent lace gown to a sexy, original piece that felt like it had history and maturity. Voila! The dress was utterly transformed. With ribbon, I created a drop waist at the hip line and sewed on a large flower “given” to me by Michael’s (I found it orphaned on the floor!). I cut it off with my shears and dumped the whole thing into a vat of strong tea and mango peels to give it a vintage sepia color. The lace already had a fringe effect….this was going to work! It would need to be shortened and given a drop waist. I took it off the hanger and assessed the situation. What better way to reclaim that dress than by wearing it to the wedding of a woman who had helped me through my divorce? And then, at the far back, I encountered my wedding dress. Nothing I owned had even the vaguest 1920’s aesthetic. Now the flight was taken care of, but what would I wear? I quickly called up the airline and found that it was still valid, but would expire the day after Briana’s wedding! I took this as a sign and booked my trip. As I cudgeled my brain to think of a way to get to California, I remembered Dorian’s ticket to Los Angeles. There was no way I would be able to afford the flight to California, let alone buy new clothes for the occasion!īut I am persistent, and I am resourceful, and I REALLY wanted to be there. Her wedding was to be a flapper-style 1920’s era speakeasy affair, and although I loved the aesthetic and wanted to dive in, I was a single mother and a self-employed graduate student. Briana’s pleasure group had been instrumental in my survival of the terrible divorce years, and I was thrilled that she had found such happiness. I ignored the ticket. I knew how he cycled between loving attentiveness and physical/emotional abuse.įast forward two years, and I was happily ensconced in graduate school in the mountains of NC when my friend Briana invited me to her wedding. When I finally broke it off and moved to North Carolina to start my masters degree, this man-we’ll call him ‘Dorian’-pleaded with me to come see him, even sending me a ticket so that we could meet one last time for forgiveness and closure. I took up with a man who was both incredibly charming and highly unstable. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it, although I felt my stomach drop every time I encountered the thing in the back of my closet.Īfter the divorce, I went into a downward spiral of rage, grief, and powerlessness in the face of my custody battle. Photograph from my wedding at 25.Even though the dress I married in was purchased for only 63 dollars in the garment district of Los Angeles, it was a rather lovely floor length confection of white lace with an empire waist and flowery straps.
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