Happily Ever After

Sorry, girls, there is no such thing.  My parents wed in 1955 and immediately began begetting.  That's what Catholics did in those days because the church required a steady stream of new parishioners; the more the better.  Some families of size were great fun with siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles always available for company and games and adventures and trouble.  No so in mine.  Both of my parents were only children, ill-equipped for the demands of a growing household.  There were no aunts, no uncles, no cousins and the grandparents were no fun. When my older brother began exhibiting signs of severe emotional disturbance, my parents had no one they could turn to for support; and their inability to cope swept away what little comfort and security I enjoyed.  From then on, the atmosphere in the family home was toxic.

After my mother's suicide, I brought her wedding dress home with me and have kept if for thirty years.  Today, I finally let it go for nothing in the estate sale my husband and I held to empty his parents' winter residence.  The ladies running the sale oohed and aahed over the dress and told me I should take it to a vintage clothing consignment store, but I didn't want to.  Once I hung it up for the sale, I had the realization that I was carrying a relic of my mother's broken psyche and needed to get rid of it.  Why I had hung onto it for so long is a question I will spend some time discussing with my therapist.

It feels good to unburden oneself;  I highly recommend it.