Junk Mail

The reminders have started to arrive.

Anyone who ever registered for wedding gifts will know what I mean - as the first anniversary approaches, the same stores that sold your family and friends wedding gifts want to keep riding that wave. The typical come-on goes something like this:

"Your wedding was unforgettable...make your first anniversary just as memorable."

Yeah, my wedding was unforgettable, all right. I can't stop thinking about what a waste of time, money, and hope that was. The thing is, our wedding was pretty amazing. Beautiful, low-key, everyone said they had a lot of fun. My childhood friend S gave me what I thought was the nicest compliment ever about a wedding - she said it was easy to be there. That may not sound like much, but it made me feel good, because that was exactly the kind of wedding I wanted.

Easy is near the top of the list of qualities I admire. I told a friend recently that one of my main reasons for marrying Dear Husband was that he was easy to be with. It makes me sound like a person who settles for the lowest common denominator, but that's not who I am. I just feel that people and events and situations that require constant energy and stress to negotiate are bad for my heart and peace of mind.

But look where easy took me this time. DH is easy to be around because he represses and subdues nearly every emotion that is unpleasant or difficult to deal with. I can identify with that - who among us hasn't had the urge to go to a movie or have sex with a stranger to get a two-hour vacation from life? I have a nearly lifelong history of self-medicating to avoid pain.

But I also know the pitfalls of that behavior - avoiding pain doesn't make it go away, it just pushes it in front of you like a snowplow until you have a mountain of ice to navigate in order to get to where you need to be. The only way to negotiate painful feelings is to feel them.

That's what I'm trying to do now. It's one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do, and I still have the urge to escape. But little reminders keep snapping me back to the surface. The junk in my mailbox that urges me to buy a silver picture frame to commemorate my special day is one of them. Luckily, these reminders can go right where they belong - in the trash.