More night terrors...

For the first time in a long time, I woke up out of a dead slumber last night to racing thoughts and a pounding heart. I didn't know where I was, who I was, or that I had been sleeping. I may have even screamed a little.

In the wake of my best friends engagement and my never ending legal entanglements with my own failed marriage, wedding thoughts, doubts, and anxieties have been lurking around in my brain. Mounting up to hellish night terrors of a particular sort: dreams about weddings.

Fine, say what you want. Tell me you love weddings, the cake the flowers the dresses, I don't care. I hate weddings and I always have. They make me nervous and frankly, I think they are tawdry and gawdy. Tell me I am just jaded, but I truly refute the fact that I only dislike wedding because mine was such a bust; oh no friend. I didn't like yours ten years ago, and I will not like the next 25 I attend in my lifetime.

What was so wrong with my wedding, you ask? Should we start with the groom and end with the dress?

Here's what I always wanted:

I wanted and off-white even champagne dress with a simple wrap design. I wanted my long brown-black hair to be in big sexy curls and a tiny tiara holding in a simple veil down the back. No train, no frill. Just simple. Red roses and candles everywhere. Ladies in Red for my processional. Men in red vests. My groom in a champagne vest with a single red rose in his pocket. Night time, quiet, reserved ceremony. Before pictures of my mom centering my tiara and fluffing my dress. After pictures of my groom holding me tight for a sweet kiss. An all white square simple cake with red roses trailing down the side. A champagne fountain.

Since I knew I would never ever ever in my wildest dreams have precisely what I wanted, I said nothing. I wanted nothing. I literally wanted to go to the court house, say thank you and be done with it. And then return to work.

Heres what I got:

I wore my prom dress to a church I had never attended but twice and was wed in front of people I barely knew. My dad wore a hawaiian shirt to give me away. My mom made the flowers, which were beautiful, no lie. One bridesmaid, my new sister in law. (Not the initial choice, she ran away a day before the ceremony) I made the carrot cake and iced it with blue icing (to match my prom dress) the day before. My groom cried like a baby and didnt understand a word the pastor was saying. Then he got so drunk, he didn't sober for four full days after the wedding.

My night terror was just that, only worse. I was facing marrying my now nearly ex husband again, but I was the me now. The me that is terrified of him. The me that gets sick everytime I hear his voice. I was preparing to knowingly marry the devil. And the dress wasn't much better. I actually, in my dream could not find an outfit to wear. I was busy trying on skirts and dresses I own now with the knowledge I now possess about him and us and this and the whole time I am thinking, "Can I survive a jump out of this window?"

What saved my phantom marriage? Rain. It started raining in my dream and the courtyard flooded. I swam out of the place, everyone looking for me, creaming my name, lamenting the ruin of my wedding day. While I am thinking, "God I hope they don't notice me..."

I know it's childish, but it is just another thing. It is just another sign that I made a huge mistake and it's not over yet. It is just another sign that I should still be sleeping alone. It is just another ulcer. Another headache. Another tear.

And when I say I'm never going to marry again and the Boy cringes inside, I just add it to the growing list of why I am so inadequate for... well, for anyone.

The more I like him, the more I want to run at him screaming, "Don't you know what they say about me? Haven't you heard the rumors?"

Doesn't he know my own family doesn't think me worthy of marriage?
Doesn't he know, before I was born, my father cast me off?
Hasn't anyone told him I am "certified pre-owned?"
Hasn't he guessed by now that I will never be right again?
I will never not have nightmares about crack and whores and weddings and the devil.
I will never love him with a full heart because I haven't a full heart.

I know I am jumping the gun, but just as you have an obligation to warn people that you have an STD or that you've been to jail, Am I not also obliged to mention that I am not whole?

That someone has made off with half of me?
That I have issues?
That I might, for the rest of my life, hate weddings?

Am I obliged to say, years before we're ever ready to be truly in love, years before we want eachother as permanent fixtures in eachothers lives and hearts, that I may not be as available as you want?

That I may change my mind, but as of right now I never want to get married or have babies or live with anyone else ever again?

And is that even true?

Can I overcome this? Can I love the Boy fully and rightly? Can I things stay this perfect, this warm, this free and easy? Can he always love me without expecting anything from me? Anything much greater than a hug and a kiss and "I love you" and "Have a nice day at work"?

Because that I have. I have love. Just not what I think he deserves. Not new love. Or completly devoted love. A quiet, second hand heart that wants him but knows too much to demand him.

Help. I love a boy but I am haunted.