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I had an epiphany this morning. Usually washing my face doesn't lead to great cosmic revelations, but I guess the combination of midmorning sun, Ivory soap, and a half hour of hysterics can sometimes allow one to see things that seem obvious in retrospect, but were hidden until then.

I've spent the past year burying myself in the details of this wedding, trying to make sure everything is perfect. I know that my life, marriage, and future social life don't revolve around the propriety of place cards and program baskets and recessional music, but.... it seemed like the thing to do. It seemed important, somehow. And it kept me busy while I teetered precariously on the border of anxiety, depression, and misery without knowing why. After all, my place cards were alphabetized and the ink on the invites matches the bridesmaid's shoes, so I have nothing to be upset about, right?

For as long as I can remember, I've known with the fiery confidence of my personal stubborn soul that I was never going to get married. I can remember being in second grade and being told that I was going to die old, ugly, alone, and unloved, because noone would ever want a girl like me. When I was old enough to start dating, and boys asked me out, I was constantly reminded that they might be willing to sleep with me, but never to marry me or even get serious about me.

There are women men screw around with, and women men marry, and I knew without question which one I was. I never even imagined getting married, or daydreamed about it. I kept my imagination on more believable things - in my daydreams I had a silver tiger and a baby dragon, I was an orphan raised by magical alien cats and sent back to earth to fight my arch-nemesis, I had a castle with a ballroom where the floor was a mosaic of gemstones, but nothing as unrealistic or impossible as marriage crossed my mind.

All my life, my self-identity has resolved around a very few things. I'm female, I'm small, I'm a nerd, my calling is veterinary medicine, and I'm never going to get married. Except now one of those isn't true anymore. And I've been doing my best not to think about this, because it's scary and intimidating and tied up with a whole bunch of other dark crap in my mind.

I don't fit my self definition anymore. I'm not me anymore, and now I don't know who I am, or who 'me' is, or what happened to the me that used to be. I know that my life isn't ending and the world isn't changing, and I'll still be myself, but that self isn't the person I thought it was. I have to redefine everything that I am. And.... if that part of my self-definition was wrong, maybe the rest isn't as concrete as I thought it was. It's even harder to wrap my mind around than any other form of self-exploring, too, because the entire premise was set down by someone who left a lot of other negative baggage in my mind. So now it's almost as if he were back with me, staring over my shoulder and telling me I'm wrong, and bringing up everything else bad he ever made me believe. And at the same time, if he was wrong about that, what else was he wrong about, too? Maybe everything I ever thought about myself wasn't real.

And while it's wonderful and liberating and marvelous, it's terrifying and nauseating and overwhelming at the same time. My preconceptions may not be flattering, but they're safe and they've become comfortable after twentymumble years of carrying them around. Besides, I have enough stubborn pride that I hate being wrong, and it takes more courage than I feel like I have right now to stand up and admit that I've been living under mistakes and false incompetence, and to risk and try instead of hiding behind convenient can'ts.

All of this, and I'm still getting married. Starting a new phase of life. Becoming part of something important and wonderful and bigger than myself (whoever that is). It's so much easier to fret about having enough hot appetizers than think about this. But now at least I know what the tender spot my mind was hiding is, and I can confront it. I've got a little more than a week and a half to figure it all out. God help me....

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Dear Banshee, you've got the rest of your life to figure it out. And when you do, you'll find that there's something else to figure out. More and more, I think that's what human life is - it's all about the figuring-out, not the having-things-all-figured out.

And yeah, it can be unsettling and scary when you realize things have changed, are changing, will continue to change in ways you could never have predicted. But it's also such an adventure!

Here's my wish for your wedding day: That it be joyful and memorable and fun, with just enough goofiness to make for the kinds of stories you can tell for decades. And that the preconceptions that keep telling you "you don't deserve this" melt away and are replaced with the knowledge that you damned well do deserve all the good things life can bring.

Dang it, Pat, I wish I could write as well as you do. I am going to comfort myself with the knowledge that you're older than I am and have had more time to practice.

Oh, Becky. *Hugs* offered, and lots of supportive good wishes.

You don't have to figure this all out in the next two weeks, honestly.

I know you believe, correctly, that Arnis loves you and wants to be with you, or you wouldn't have agreed to marry him in the first place. I know that you love him and want to be with him, or, again, you wouldn't have agreed to marry him. Love alone isn't sufficient; love doesn't conquer all; but it gives you a hell of a strong base from which to work.

Therefore, I give you formal permission to completely IGNORE the issue for the next two weeks and focus on things that make you happy and give you comfort. After the wedding, THEN you can start re-examining your sense of self. For now, just (as if it were that easy!) remember that you are loved.

You are not who you think you are
You are that and so much more;
You're the center of a burning star
You're a newly opened door,
You're the guardian of childhood dreams
You're the teacher of the dance,
You're the origin of bright sunbeams,
You're the mistress over chance,
You're the angel of the improv stage,
You're the healer of the lost,
You're a woman wise beyond her age
although in a funk you're tossed.
You are a wonder, no need to hide,
And all too soon, you'll be a bride.

*applauds*
ˇ

Becky, Dear One, if you **SIMPLY MUST** worry, for heaven's sake worry about something really important for the next two weeks. Like
did you order enough umbrella for the drinks, or if your left pinkey nail really does match your right pinkey nail. Take all the other stuff and put it firmly on hold until after the honeymoon. Just enjoy yourself for a change. See you Saturday.

*grin* You don't actually *have* to have it all figured out in a week and a half, you just have to *start* working on redefining yourself over the next week and a half, and continue on from there.

It's really odd, the sheer number of people I know who are in the process of mental/emotional upheaval as they question their core beliefs, who they thought they were, turning and actually *looking* at their deepest, darkest fears. I wonder if it's something in the water?

Anyway, you're not alone. I wish you were closer - I'd invite you to chicks' night. ;-)

You don't actually *have* to have it all figured out in a week and a half, you just have to *start* working on redefining yourself over the next week and a half, and continue on from there.

Recorded for playback when necessary,

braider.

*grin* Yeah, yeah, I know. But that's exactly why I'm in a position to tell her the same thing. ;-)

Of all the mistakes you could make, I think this one is good. You thought you were the type that men wouldn't marry, when in fact you were the sort of woman who would marry another charming well-mannered nerd.

You could have been the sort of woman who was attracted to bad boys.

A dozen things race through my mind when I read something like this, but right now, one of them is sticking.

Many a person has thought herself weak because she struggled to plod through the day. But she plodded through the day with huge weights strapped to her spirit, weights that could easily have crushed anyone who wasn't incredibly strong.

It was only later, in the fullness of time when the weights had been set down, that she could look back, and think "what strength I had, to carry so much, for so long, and still have the strength to get through the day."

Darlin', you're setting down some weights... it'll feel funny as all heck. Try not to worry; what will happen will happen, and I think it's ready to happen.

If it'll help to talk, well, I'll e-mail you my home number. Or, if you'd like, I can do my "ritual of demon chasing" and see if it works long distance.

Oh, gee. I'm in kinda the exact same place only different (my identity crisis: leaving techie-right-brain-hard-science-nerddom for that woo-woo-touchy-feely-right-brain-social-service stuff I was raised to believe was crap, that I love to death and have trouble admitting I am drawn to) I keep reminding myself: "What the caterpillar think is the end of the world, is what we call a butterfly."

You've gotten past several other "you won't ever" statements by grit and sweat and wit that you knew you deserved to redefine your self-image. I don't know why you feel you don't deserve another redefinition now, but you'll ease into it somehow.

Well, actually, I do have a suspicion. If there weren't so many other stresses in your life, you would have had time and the energy to think about it in bits and pieces instead if its tumbling into your head at an inconvenient moment. So tell the redefinition to take a number, and you'll get to it when you can.

PS. You did really kick-butt work, in figuring out this insight. You have every right to feel proud of yourself for making it -- even if it did feel like it popped out of the thin blue air like a fairy gift.

I don't fit my self definition anymore. I'm not me anymore, and now I don't know who I am, or who 'me' is, or what happened to the me that used to be. I know that my life isn't ending and the world isn't changing, and I'll still be myself, but that self isn't the person I thought it was. I have to redefine everything that I am. And.... if that part of my self-definition was wrong, maybe the rest isn't as concrete as I thought it was. It's even harder to wrap my mind around than any other form of self-exploring, too, because the entire premise was set down by someone who left a lot of other negative baggage in my mind. So now it's almost as if he were back with me, staring over my shoulder and telling me I'm wrong, and bringing up everything else bad he ever made me believe. And at the same time, if he was wrong about that, what else was he wrong about, too? Maybe everything I ever thought about myself wasn't real.

This bit here... A lot of people who've been emotionally abused feel more comfortable when things are going wrong than when they are going right, because negative stuff is *familiar*.

And yeah, it's one heck of a blasted tower when one realizes that one's abuser is wrong about a lot of things, especially when the abuser is a parent. It makes for a lot of re-questioning, re-examinging, shifts of worldview. And it's scary! But it's ultimately a good process to go through, 'cause it means you're ready to let go of the untrue negative things that you were told.

Big hugs, much strength, and a wonderful wedding day!

What She Said.

YOU were not wrong. HE was wrong, and he forced you to believe him. There's a big difference between the two. And, as

sdorn said, half the problem with this is the timing issue. You really don't have to figure it out right this minute -- that's another bad tape from the same source. Put it on the back burner, and come back to it when you can say, "Clearly I'm not the type who will never get married... because I am married! So there!"

Sorry that hit you so hard, but better now than on the wedding day, right? I also thought I'd never get married, though it wasn't as much a part of my self-definition... I just thought I'd never find the Right Person. (Which is a fairly common feeling, in my experience.) I was about ready to start working toward becoming a Crazy Old Cat Lady when I met

sdavido...

Just remember that your life isn't going to change in any drastic way. You've been with

umbran for a long time now; you know that you love each other, and you want to be together, and you're committed to each other. This is just to formalize it.

As for some jerk trying to predict your future way before you were old enough to date... if he was that brilliant, why wasn't he out making a fortune in the stock market?

I have never been one to win popularity contests. Heck, I couldn't win contests for geek popularity -- in a field of two, I'd come in third, all through grade school and partway through college. My self-image has, for as long as I can remember (at least back to kindergarten -- no, I'm not kidding), included the idea that I was not worth anyone's attention, regard, respect, or affection, much less love.

About this time last year, I went to a science fiction convention in the city where I went to high school and college. I met an old acquaintance from high school there; she had been a year or two behind me, but we'd had some classes together, and she and my sister had been in the same Girl Scout troops together for most of a decade. We struck up a conversation, and the topic drifted to Olde Tymes, when suddenly she dropped a comment in my lap that had me doing my very best fish impression for a few minutes. The shock of the event has wiped the precise wording from my mind, but I'll paraphrase it here.

"You know, I thought you were such a hottie back in high school. I never had the nerve to ask you out, and now I wish I had. I'd still like to, although my husband would not take it well."

I was incredibly flattered by the comment, but at the same time it felt as though someone had just pulled away the tablecloth I'd been standing on. I was, and am, so unused to hearing that kind of thing about me that I had no idea how to respond. It was kind of like walking out the door, dressed for a cold thundershower, and finding it partly cloudy and comfortably warm outside -- not an unwelcome surprise, but certainly a surprise. Or like biting into what I thought was an oatmeal cookie and discovering that it's full of chocolate chips. It's like those things, but it's a lot more intense.

I have confidence in you, and I have confidence in y'all.

Just tbought I'd let you know that my fiance is going through much the same thing, as her self image had never included marriage, either. *hugs*

Pardon the geekery, but it all comes down to the Vorlon question: "Who are You?". That question is *hard*, possibly the hardest question there is.

*You* are not your career, or your name, or your size, or your relationship, or the mythical lack of relationship that foolish people convinced you of at a defenseless age. You are all of that, and much more. You are none of that and all of it, a real, interesting person, much too complex to wrap up into a definitional box with a bow on top.

I'm not going to make light of this epiphany, and I'm not going to tell you that it shouldn't be scary. It *should* be scary to confront a basic existential question like that, and it says much about your depth that you find it so. But the fear will pass, if you let it. The question itself won't go away -- it's one of those signposts that, once you've passed it, you really can't return to. But if you take the opportunity to wrestle with the question, probe it, savor and ultimately befriend it, you'll find that the fear eventually subsides.

And one more point: it is right, and normal, and appropriate to hit this particular revelation at this particular time. A wedding is one of the purest rites of passage we have available to us, a fine time for self-reflection, sometimes whether we like it or not. Don't let it distract you too much from the important stuff over the next few weeks: any answers you find quickly and easily aren't going to be true ones, and you shouldn't be in a rush. But let it percolate in the background. This is, as they say, the beginning of the rest of your life, and a chance to live it better without the baggage of assumptions that you've been laboring under for so long...

I don't fit my self definition anymore. I'm not me anymore, and now I don't know who I am, or who 'me' is, or what happened to the me that used to be. I know that my life isn't ending and the world isn't changing, and I'll still be myself, but that self isn't the person I thought it was...Maybe everything I ever thought about myself wasn't real.

The fact that you can see this in yourself is really quite impressive. Knowing how you're reacting to situations and how you see yourself in those situations is the first thing They try to teach you in therapy.

You don't have to hold yourself to any specific timeline for redefining yourself. I have this sneaking suspicion that you will have another mental shift to have to incorporate after your wedding.

Giving up negative self images is difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to unlearn these patterns. They weren't created in an hour, nor will they be abolished in an hour. This is my least favorite part of the process. I've been arguing with my therapist because I still think that I should be able to totally change how I feel about myself because, after all, it's my brain!

*smile*

Things will work themselves out. Worry about the flowers; worry about the toast that your maid of honor will make. This too shall pass, and I know that you're stronger than you think.

*hug*

Well, I feel kind of awkward stumbling onto your journal and posting such a mundane comment in what's quite a powerful post, but...

I just wanted to remind you to bring me vet student gear to dance tomorrow. Thanks for the help. :)

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