Dream Wedding & Obsession
Ok, so remember back when I mentioned how during the first breakdown I fell for this Australian guy named James? I often look back at that time and think it was a perfect storm that began with discord between my mom and I, dramatic food/workout changes and feeling intense romantic feelings.
When everything began at that apartment with those two roommates, I was developing feelings for my assistant manager at work. Now, I think I mentioned the tension I felt because he kissed me and had a girlfriend and was my manager, but I didn't fully divulge how much I was affected by it all.
Right before I was hospitalized, I was stuck in thought circles about Vinnie. And one night it went from a crush to sudden very deep emotions - the kind that, like with James, made me start to basically live from the world of fantasy briefly. It was all one bad evening, but I went down the rabbit hole and basically started imagining our wedding. I made a list of my bridesmaids, I started to write invitations. It was like a young girls' imagination run wild. I think those letters were still in the apartment and out when they kicked me out. But once I was in the hospital, that dream was totally shattered.
I tried to hold on to some parts of it. When I wanted to go back to work at Starbucks they thought I would behave inappropriately toward the manager. I think. I had to get a psychologist approval before returning - which took some time.
I would tell the psychologist I needed to be back at work, to make money. And they kept telling me that I needed to take care of myself first. I didn't understand what that meant. Paying for a place to live was taking care of myself. Somehow in this I eventually learned that my state of mind, my calmness, my fears, that would need to subside before working. I learned that I had to pursue stability first.
Eventually I developed the philosophy that if something is causing me so much trouble I am regularly crying at work, then I have to do everything in my power to stop what I am doing and address that problem - even if it means taking off work (or dropping out of school - which I did later on).
Well, the Vinnie thing was terribly embarrassing. Everything about it made me feel like such a complete fool. Also the not wanting to totally out the kiss thing, but feeling something magical about it. I had so longed for love, for marriage, I was believe what I wanted to imagine was true. Now I had hung out with Vinnie, and I had a friendship I believe. I just liked that the dude worked hard, played his butt off in ice hockey and jammed out to the Grateful Dead. I think he may have been Catholic.
At 4:45 am we would set up the store and I like the groove we had. The movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith came out at the time and I thought we were like that in some way. We had this work compatibility that I mistook for romance.
He knew something went too far. I remember while I was on short-term disability leave from Starbucks I sent him a picture of me smiling. He responded "Please Stop." I did stop. Something about his response sounded so tortured, frustrated, dismissive...I don't really know how to describe it.
There was a certain amount of heartbreak I experience in all this. It's strange.
One day as I was processing all of this, I drove all around Orlando and Lake Mary like a bat out of hell. I remember blasting Guns and Roses. (Not sure if he liked them or if I just had the CD). It was hot outside and the air in my old volvo didn't work that way. I would drive aimlessly, so so afraid. I went to a Catholic Church, hoping for maybe sanctuary or something. I had a stamp of the Virgin Mary I placed on the car door above my window. I was not eating a lot then. My diet was coffee and snacks. And I just kept driving.
Eventually I stopped at a hotel. My parents would always be calling me. I got to that hotel and there was a beautiful reception set out for a wedding the next day. It was pink and blue colors. The blue was these glass colored marble things in vases. I could imagine the wedding so perfectly. This was pure imagination..have so little to do with anything other than dreaming. I thought my wedding should've been there.
I was staying at the hotel because I wanted a safe place to sleep. I thought paying for it made it safe - unlike my parents. For some reason I told my mom where I was and she came to stay. We watched a movie where a woman had a baby. The lady on tv was screaming through childbirth and I think I started screaming, and violently crying through it. Something in me was still breaking. I was thinking how in that moment it was like my mom was a baby, and in this reverse fucked up way, at 20 I was giving birth to her. This metaphor took ahold of me.
I remember her telling me to be quiet.
I have carried these parts of my story with so much utter shame and embarrassment. And some of my embarrassment was for dreaming so big.
I wish I could take these chunks of my life back. Say they never happened.
The strangeness didn't scare me so much as the hopelessness of it.
Would I ever have a real love . . . or wedding?
When everything began at that apartment with those two roommates, I was developing feelings for my assistant manager at work. Now, I think I mentioned the tension I felt because he kissed me and had a girlfriend and was my manager, but I didn't fully divulge how much I was affected by it all.
Right before I was hospitalized, I was stuck in thought circles about Vinnie. And one night it went from a crush to sudden very deep emotions - the kind that, like with James, made me start to basically live from the world of fantasy briefly. It was all one bad evening, but I went down the rabbit hole and basically started imagining our wedding. I made a list of my bridesmaids, I started to write invitations. It was like a young girls' imagination run wild. I think those letters were still in the apartment and out when they kicked me out. But once I was in the hospital, that dream was totally shattered.
I tried to hold on to some parts of it. When I wanted to go back to work at Starbucks they thought I would behave inappropriately toward the manager. I think. I had to get a psychologist approval before returning - which took some time.
I would tell the psychologist I needed to be back at work, to make money. And they kept telling me that I needed to take care of myself first. I didn't understand what that meant. Paying for a place to live was taking care of myself. Somehow in this I eventually learned that my state of mind, my calmness, my fears, that would need to subside before working. I learned that I had to pursue stability first.
Eventually I developed the philosophy that if something is causing me so much trouble I am regularly crying at work, then I have to do everything in my power to stop what I am doing and address that problem - even if it means taking off work (or dropping out of school - which I did later on).
Well, the Vinnie thing was terribly embarrassing. Everything about it made me feel like such a complete fool. Also the not wanting to totally out the kiss thing, but feeling something magical about it. I had so longed for love, for marriage, I was believe what I wanted to imagine was true. Now I had hung out with Vinnie, and I had a friendship I believe. I just liked that the dude worked hard, played his butt off in ice hockey and jammed out to the Grateful Dead. I think he may have been Catholic.
At 4:45 am we would set up the store and I like the groove we had. The movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith came out at the time and I thought we were like that in some way. We had this work compatibility that I mistook for romance.
He knew something went too far. I remember while I was on short-term disability leave from Starbucks I sent him a picture of me smiling. He responded "Please Stop." I did stop. Something about his response sounded so tortured, frustrated, dismissive...I don't really know how to describe it.
There was a certain amount of heartbreak I experience in all this. It's strange.
One day as I was processing all of this, I drove all around Orlando and Lake Mary like a bat out of hell. I remember blasting Guns and Roses. (Not sure if he liked them or if I just had the CD). It was hot outside and the air in my old volvo didn't work that way. I would drive aimlessly, so so afraid. I went to a Catholic Church, hoping for maybe sanctuary or something. I had a stamp of the Virgin Mary I placed on the car door above my window. I was not eating a lot then. My diet was coffee and snacks. And I just kept driving.
Eventually I stopped at a hotel. My parents would always be calling me. I got to that hotel and there was a beautiful reception set out for a wedding the next day. It was pink and blue colors. The blue was these glass colored marble things in vases. I could imagine the wedding so perfectly. This was pure imagination..have so little to do with anything other than dreaming. I thought my wedding should've been there.
I was staying at the hotel because I wanted a safe place to sleep. I thought paying for it made it safe - unlike my parents. For some reason I told my mom where I was and she came to stay. We watched a movie where a woman had a baby. The lady on tv was screaming through childbirth and I think I started screaming, and violently crying through it. Something in me was still breaking. I was thinking how in that moment it was like my mom was a baby, and in this reverse fucked up way, at 20 I was giving birth to her. This metaphor took ahold of me.
I remember her telling me to be quiet.
I have carried these parts of my story with so much utter shame and embarrassment. And some of my embarrassment was for dreaming so big.
I wish I could take these chunks of my life back. Say they never happened.
The strangeness didn't scare me so much as the hopelessness of it.
Would I ever have a real love . . . or wedding?
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