Элисон Скотч - The Theory of Opposites

My wedding dress is lovingly wrapped and hanging toward the back. I unzip the garment bag slowly, taking my time, savoring it, unsure if it will be as beautiful as I recall it to be, unsure if I was as beautiful as I remember myself to be on that day. Because I was. Despite what has happened and all of the stuff in between. Shawn and I got married under a huppah made of fresh bamboo and green vines and deep ivory roses and willow and hydrangeas and delphinium. Like Jewish women the world over, I circled Shawn seven times, which used to symbolize a wife’s commitment to her husband, but which many people now assume to be a wife’s commitment to family. And I understood this, my desire for a different family. For a new start. Even if I loved my own in profound, complicated ways. The rabbi pronounced us husband and wife, and Shawn raised his foot and smashed the wine glass, and all the guests shouted:

“Mazel tov!”

And we kissed under that huppah of bamboo and vines and roses and willow and hydrangeas and delphinium. And he dipped me a little and then swung me back up quickly. And I thought:

Finally.

And he said:

“I’m glad I didn’t screw it up!”

And it really didn’t occur to me that we should have said: I love you! Or Oh my God, this is the best day of my life! Or something. Not I’m glad I didn’t screw it up. Not: Finally, even if I only said that to myself.

I unzip my wedding gown bag and hold my breath. There it is — and it is still as beautiful as I remember. The lace is immaculate; the beading is hand-sewn with grace; the waistline swoops like the curve of a swan; the fabric is rich and sumptuous and a bit like heaven. I try to force myself to zip the bag back up, to put the memory in context, where it belongs, in the deep unknown of what’s next for Shawn and me, what’s next for merely…me. But my brain stumbles, and my fingers tremble. And I find that I simply can’t do it. I can’t close what I just opened.

So instead, I take a step backward, out toward the door from which I entered. But before I can find my escape, I stumble on something in my path, and I land on the floor. I look down and see it then: the skateboard my dad gave me at twelve. I didn’t notice it before. Or maybe it snuck out as a reminder, with a mind all of its own.

Funny, I think, though it’s not funny at all. I can pretend to be Willa all I want. But that may not be who I am at all. Never who I was to begin with.

Daring Yourself to a Better Life!

By Vanessa Pines and Willa Chandler

PART FOUR: BE WHAT YOU ALREADY ARE (BUT AIM BIGGER)

SUMMARY:

We would never tell you to be anything but you. There’s only one you, so why even bother to be anyone else? But that doesn’t mean you can’t try to shine a little brighter, try to set your sights higher on the horizon, try to leap off the Brooklyn Bridge. (See our earlier chapters.) Chandler suggests that being you is enough. And of course (holla natural beauties!), it is. But that doesn’t mean you can’t strive to be your very best version. It’s easier than you think, but harder, too. Up next: we’ll share how we leapt toward our own best selves, all the while knowing that there’s never a promise of a safety net, but that if we caught air, we might actually touch the stars.

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The elusive Erica Stoppard has tagged Shawn in both photos, and I am grateful that she hasn’t thought to change her “friends of friends” privacy settings. They are on a golf course, the blue sky behind them, the greens sprawling out in front of them. Shawn is tan and grinning, happy in the way that I used to make him, with one hand tucked around her waist, and another on the shoulder of a guy I don’t recognize but who is tagged as “Peter Chin.” And Peter Chin slings his own arm around “Nabov Slotkin.” I look at them, pull the screen close to my face and stare. Erica is striking, with long legs and rich almost-black hair, with dewy skin and straight, white teeth. She has dimples on both cheeks and smiles at the camera like she just knows that she can crush all the men in a round of eighteen holes. She looks confident. She looks assured. She looks nothing like me.

Right then, Nicky knocks on my door, and I snap my laptop shut quickly.

“Looking at porn?” He flops on my bed.

“What?”

“I’m twelve, Aunt Willa. I know what porn is.” He rolls over and cradles his head in his hands, his elbows splaying to the sides.

“Okay…well…that’s maybe something to discuss with your uncle.”

“I don’t need a porn expert,” he says.

I turn magenta. “I didn’t mean to intimate that your uncle is a porn expert.”

He shrugs. “It’s cool.” But then he lingers. “Can I ask you a few things? About…what’s been going on with me?”

“Anything.” I’m surprised to find myself so open, and to find that the openness comes so easily to me with him. But to be sure, I amend: “I mean, not about porn. I don’t want to discuss that with you.”

“Are you and Uncle Shawn getting a divorce?”

I smile. “I thought you meant questions about…your life. Or…puberty.” I sort of pray that he doesn’t want to discuss puberty, but his mother is somewhere on the African continent, and if he needs to hear about a woman’s menstrual cycle, I guess I can explain it to him without dying of embarrassment. Until I realize that I’m probably not the expert. I filter through my brain and try to track my own period, when it’s next due, what it means in context of a broken condom. The dates are murky; the math not adding up. I file it away.

“It’s just that everyone’s wondering.”

“How nice for them.”

“Okay, how about: is Grammy Minnie a lesbian now? I think that’s kind of awesome.”

“Nicky,” I chide.

“Okay, fine.” He sits up and leans back against the headboard. “I guess I have some questions about my dad.” He chews his lip, and for a moment, reminds me so much of the kid he was when I first met him seven years back when Shawn and I had just started dating: more innocent, less complicated.

“I’ll try to answer them,” I say quietly. “I know your mom’s pretty far away. But maybe the subject of your dad is better meant for her?” Puberty I might be okay with; I’m not sure if I’m emotionally proficient enough for this.

“I dunno. My mom’s sort of a mess herself. Trying to save people all over the world. I mean, I’m right here.”

I push his bangs away. He looks at me with those big eyes, just like he did back at five.

“Okay then, ask away.” I say, hoping I don’t totally screw this up, screw him up forever.

“I guess…I just…I mean, I don’t really get why it happened. Why he had to die. Then. Like that.”

“Oh buddy.” I reach for his hand.

“Do you believe in karma?”

“Hmmm,” I demur. “That’s hard. If you’re asking if I think your dad did something to deserve this terrible thing, then of course not. He was a good man. Your Uncle Shawn thought of him like, like a brother, I guess. He told me this story about how your dad once took Uncle Shawn camping…and you know that Uncle Shawn is not a camper…”