I often think of that dress I bought you. Our lives were tearing apart, and I was so sure you were going to leave, and you did, but I loved to see you happy. I always did. And as you tried on this dress, I saw joy in your eyes, so I seized it. Or tried.
It was expensive, I know, and I never saw you wear it outside the store. Sometimes I wonder when you did, who you went home with, what happened to this dress. But that is unimportant. What mattered was what this dress meant to me. What it symbolized for me. A selfless gift in the face of hopelessness. An acknowledgement that I had no power or control, but in this void I would choose love and happiness over anger. Even if it would not choose me.
It’s funny, or maybe sad, that I don’t even remember what the dress looks like. I remember the moment, and the emotion, over the details. The dress I do remember, a plain purple one you’d worn so many times before. I remember watching you walk away down an alley, in a moment that felt so heavy.
Somewhere in my mind these dresses have defined the end of an era. One waves goodbye and the other a final gesture of love before we were over.
But nothing is ever over. I carry in me more complex emotion than anyone seems to believe. I can be torn with laughter and tears, smiles and rage, all in a moment. Every moment. I just choose to pull out what I do, but it is all always there. Bubbling beneath the surface.
I don’t want pity, I despise it. When other people talk about my life and tear up it makes me angry. I don’t want people to feel bad for me. I don’t want to be pitied. I’m not the one who quit, I didn’t run away and hide. I faced my doom head on, and I did it with a gift dress in hand and love in my heart. That is who I chose to be.
