'Today, I look in your eyes and I hold your hands in mine, as I promise to be true to you as your wife. I love you as my husband. I do, of course.'

I meant it when I said it

Scared, though I wouldn't admit

I looked in your eyes and held your

hands

Smiling and quivering

Wanting to know

Did you feel the same?

I won't, though

I can't believe

I won't see you

For the first time

I don't understand this day without you

The first, I cried. The tears flowed and I couldn't get them to stop. This morning, I think about where I was that day and the tears still fall, though with less intensity. At just this time that day, it was all going to happen in just a few hours. We were going to be together 'forever'. Whatever that means because, clearly, it doesn't mean what one would think.

The dress, the requests and our hands

'In just over a day, I will hold your hands in mine and promise to be true to you as..'

Today, I think about that day, that moment and your smile. About the promises, the happiness and the nerves.

Today, my heart hurts as I think about how WE couldn't make it. About the promises, the sadness and the NEW nerves.

It's been a while but yet such a short time. It's a strange place I am in now. Wondering what I could have done different to 'make it work'. What I could have done different to make you want to stay. What I could have done different to keep the smile on your face. At the same time, I know what I could have done different and it wouldn't have kept the smile on my face.

I feel like a failure, still.

Five years ago, at this very moment, as the dress hung waiting for my body to fill it, I remember a sense of calm when, actually, I think now my nerves were in a tailspin. I chalked it up to being 'normal' for what I was about to embark on. Thinking the nerves would calm after the words were spoken. They never did. I asked you to 'bear' with me as I attempted to deal with them. I asked too much. That I know as I can only ever speak for myself.

I am sorry for being a failure, on my end.

If I could take back all that I did to you, I would, in a second. If I could just be honest with my nerves and tell you five years ago that holding your hands and making promises scared me more than I should have been, I would, in a second but I was too scared to do so.

I am no longer scared, to be honest.

Holding on.

Last night, I found myself saying 'That is what I am supposed to be doing and that is what my life should be.' I would like to know where I got those thoughts from, who poured them in to my brain or why I am still thinking them.

Not for nothing but maybe what should or supposed to be is just what is happening. Maybe?

Now remember, I don't know, evidently. Everyone else does.

Really?? Fuck that.

I know that I am holding on to my old life. I get that. I know that I feel like a failure because I couldn't live up to what I was supposed to be doing or how I was supposed to be living my life but I have to remember that I wasn't living for me. I was living for everyone else and that has a shelf life. Now I am searching for the sledge hammer, a big one to be exact. One that can take out that shelf and all it's contents in one quick whack because that is no longer the way of my life. At the same time, I wish I had a switch. One that I can flip and make all of this done in a much quicker and simpler way. Where do they stock those and can I buy them in bulk?

I am realizing (albeit slowly) that I am doing EXACTLY what I should be doing with my life. I am living for me because at the end of the day, I am the one I need to answer to, I am the one who is going to sleep with me at night and I am the one waking up with me in the morning. So when I take a look at myself in the mirror and stare at my reflection, I want to see a smile staring back at me. A real, true smile and know that I am doing what I should and am supposed to be doing while I let go of my old life and grab a hold of my new.