Earlier this week I finally got around to making motions on a decision I’d made well over a year ago–to sell my wedding dress.
The way I saw it I had two options:
- Spend more money to dry clean and preserve the dress. Thereafter, it would probably never be worn by me again, but rather remain bagged and hung in the deep, forgotten recesses of an unused closet only to collect dust. Take up space. Exist. Be. Perhaps I’d take it out some day and smile as the flood of memories swelled through my heart as a result of the dress simply being a reminder. A keepsake. No longer an article of clothing with even a hint of utility. In theory, whatever feelings and images I’d want to reproduce from my wedding day could be done without still possessing the dress I wore on that day.
- Sell the dress. Make a couple of bucks on it, albeit a tenth of what was actually paid for it. Free up the space in my closet, my life, my mind. Have one less thing to worry about. Move. Store. Maintain. ..
When I found out the dress wasn’t going to be worth all that much I had to ask myself what was it worth to me? Was I to follow through with the former or the latter? Surprisingly enough the consignment store owner claimed she’d never had someone come in who was hesitant about selling. Was I truly the only gal that walked through her doors with pre-sale remorse?
I stood around weighing the pros and the cons of selling, biding my time a bit, chit-chatting with the seamstress and another seller looking to unload a gaudy sweet 16 gown and a make-up caked prom dress.
As humans we attach ourselves to things, to people, to memories, to goals. The list goes on and on. The basis of this attachment is rooted in our attachment to ideas, particularly on how our reality or circumstances should be. The suffering that I experienced in making the wedding dress decision was rooted in a belief that I should hold onto it. Perhaps because it’s irreplaceable. Perhaps because I wouldn’t get what I paid for it. Perhaps because that’s simply the social norm, what others would do.
Finally, I bit the bullet, let go of the “shoulds” chose the latter. Non-Attachment. Free myself.
At least for the time being.
I have to admit that after it crossed my mind I could take the couple hundred bucks and buy one or two more practical, albeit drop-dead-sexy, night-on-the-town dresses my decision was solidified. My train of thought ended with a mental picture of Evan’s face when he first saw me coming down the “aisle.” Perhaps I could get a similar reaction from him in a new dress–
Make a new memory with a new experience.
With my circling, indecisive thought patterns replaced with a simple priceless image of Evan looking at me as if I was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen I took the consignment store’s card, left the dress behind, and walked out the door.
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