Busting ghosts

I pulled out the dreaded  box today.
I had stashed it underneath all the other boxes in the storage room.
But I knew it was there.
I needed a dress.   My friend is getting married today.
Every time I go to a wedding with Andrew I look at him and think,
"Yep, that was real...still is real."
I get tears in my eyes and lay my head on his shoulder.  He thinks I'm a dork.  I start asking him all these questions about how he feels and what he's thinking.  He just looks at me with a half-smile.   To him this is somebody else's wedding, not ours.  For me, every wedding echoes mine.  I wonder if they feel how I did.  In a way, I guess I still wonder how Andrew felt.
I absolutely meant it on the day we got married.
It is one of the only things I've done with my whole soul.  I love to rewind it and play it over and over, like that funny part on Ghostbusters where Venkman hits Ray on the head and says,
"I'm right in the MIDDLE of something, Ray!"

That moment -  in that movie - encapsulates my whole childhood.  The six of us would sit with the giant silver popcorn bowl.  Six hands simultaneously fishing for the butteriest pieces and watching Ghostbusters in the middle of a summer day.  We had this lima-bean green couch with lumpy cushions.  It also served as a trampoline when the movie got really good.

Anyway, so weddings are right up there with Ghostbusters, and I am going to one today.
I want to look good.
I want Andrew to look over at me and think, she is just as great now as she was 5 years ago.
So I got out the box of skinny clothes.
I didn't expect them to fit, but I needed a dress.  I was half asleep too.  I woke up at 5:45 this morning and excavated the thing out from the dust.
Now I am sitting here in a pair of jean shorts from the box, and they fit.
I do not feel accomplished.  I do not feel afraid.  I do not feel guilty or ashamed or triumphant.
I just feel dressed.  That's the odd thing about this recovery.  It simply is.  It is quiet.  I am making peace with my own humanity during a million moments when nobody's looking.
Clothes are just clothes.
Andrew is just Andrew.  I am just Sarah.  In a way, this is the best I can hope for.

Our wedding day 2008
 (He told me years later he wished I would have worn a white dress. We laughed . We both knew better than to expect me to do anything different.)