WEDDING SHOPPING - IT'S JUST NOT CRICKET.
Okay, so by some bizarre cosmic coincidence one of my very best friends (who happens to also be my only friend that still lives in my home town) is also getting married. She is also marrying a guy from overseas. Her fiance is also moving here. She also met her fiance online. She is also getting married rather quickly. Her fiance is also tall and skinny. They are also having a very low key registry wedding. They are also getting married very soon. They too are inviting only a handful of very close guests. It's pretty fucking weird how similar our circumstances are. However they have diverged with her unexpected announcement that she is expecting.
I'm happy for her but there's a very real and selfish part of me that feels cheated. Not long ago she and I were discussing children and how they weren't really on the cards for my fiance and I. She agreed that she had no pull towards being a parent. That made me happy because literally everyone else I grew up with except this friend has kids. It was a relief to have a close friend to navigate childlessness with. We could continue to make out plans to meet up whenever it was convenient. We'd continue our beloved traditions of trawling thrift stores and going to the market, meeting up on a whim. We could maybe sometimes do couple things and it would be great. Now that's all changing very suddenly. Mostly I feel very protective of her. She's going through some hard shit that I won't write about here, even on a totally anonymous not-a-blog. I know she won't be one of THOSE parents whose identity becomes their child. I still worry, though. I want my friend of over 20 years. I want her to be recognisable on the other side for MY sake, and for that I'm sorry.
I can't help but feel left behind.
I honestly don't know if I can ever carry a child to term, and if I did there's a strong likelihood they would be a very sickly child like I was. Still, the idea of having our kids growing up being friends the way we did is a tempting one. I have to remind myself that really isn't on the cards for me, and hey - maybe if I did have a kid our kids would hate each other.
She really needs a friend right now and I'll be there for her no matter my worries and selfish impulses. I can promise her that.
Wow, that got heavy. Ha ha. Wasn't expecting that because the whole point of this blog post was something a lot more light-hearted and far more frustrating: shopping for wedding clothes.
She and I went out shopping this morning at our favourite vintage store. My friend is gorgeous and very slim - even now she's pregnant - and found a billion different things to try. Sure, it was harder than usual because she had to accommodate the kid, but she managed to find this gorgeous blue dress. Good thing she did, because the wedding is about 10 days away!
I found a few things to try on but sadly vintage clothes just aren't made for busty girls. It doesn't help that the store mostly has sizes 6-10. Vintage 6-10s are even smaller than regular ones. Even in my teen years when I was a 6 I would have been too busty to find a good fit. Now that I'm a 12 it's hopeless. I tried on a 16 (and it was such a gorgeous dress!) and it was WAY too small for my chest, and swimming in other areas.
It's a shame because I LOVE vintage clothes. I have a few in my closet I could wear to her wedding but they're very much winter dresses and there's no way in hell I'm wearing anything wintery in the middle of summer.
So I'm calling bullshit on clothes shopping. I knew it would be painful. I wish I could just wear jeans and a nerd t-shirt like I usually do. Or even better, ripped jeans, my leather chucks and a flannel shirt (I'm not getting married 'til Autumn). In fact, my friend told me to go ahead and do it! But I have parents to placate and I think I'll look back with regret if I didn't dress up just a little.
I'm definitely not wearing a wedding dress, or anything white. I have ordered a dress but it's wholesale and from China and I have no expectations of it fitting in any way even though I ordered two sizes bigger than I am. It's more of a guideline for when I inevitably have to have a dress quickly made because my tits are too big, my legs too short and the rest of me too average.
It's not meant to be painful. TV and magazines say getting a wedding dress is a huge milestone in life, one to be witnessed by family and friends (and cameras!), a time when the blinders fall away and you realise in a moment from a fairytale just how beautiful you can be.
Bullshit. Not for me. I've been cheated and it's just not cricket.
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