One Month Into Mrs. Brennan

Last month, I got married. 

I thought about marriage a lot as a kid. I dreamed of getting married under the sardine tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a huge glittering ring to match the one my husband would put on my finger. I wondered who would come to my wedding, and if I would have to invite those family members that ignored me or, worse yet, bullied me to tears. I wondered what my husband would be like, if he would abuse and intimidate me the same way my own dad did to my mom.

When I was with my ex, I doubted I would get married at all. I lost count of how many times I was told, both directly and indirectly, that I wasn’t “worthy” of being married. Even worse, for a long time, I believed it. In my own mind, I was the villain in everyone’s story, including my own. Those childhood dreams of a grand wedding faded with each grim reminder that I was monstrous, unlovable, unwanted.

Tucker and I have been together for three years, and he never makes me feel that way. Every day, he reminds me I’m not a villain or a monster. I’m a human being, fallible but never incapable of repairing. He shows me every day that life is about trying, sometimes failing, and trying again.

Even early on in our relationship, we would joke about marriage the same way we joke about most things, but deep inside I knew I had to wait until I was “ready.” Until I was thinner. Until I had my mental health in check. Until I had more money. And I realized, I was waiting, ultimately, until I was “worthy.” But by whose standards? This year, I realized I was putting those same mental blocks in my way that my ex laid out for me to become “marriage material.” But those blocks were never real - just cruel, manipulative torture devices. So once those came down, and Tucker and I really started to talk about it, I approached marriage in a different way: practically.

Our marriage came without rings, impractical with our current salaries. It came without a big flashy ceremony; instead, we had a pizza party with friends at a local arcade. It came without an expensive white dress; instead, I wore a lovely party dress I found online. It came without a photographer; instead, our friend snapped photos with my cell phone. Flowers did happen, only because my previous employer was a florist and gave me a significant discount. Our officiant was our old roommate, who married us in a park next to City Hall.

Standing in that park on an unseasonably-warm November day, my eyes stinging with tears, I became a wife. I saw Tucker’s eyes filling with tears, a goofy smile stretching across his face, and I saw my boyfriend becoming my husband. And once our friend signed the paperwork telling the government we were allowed to be married, that was it.

That feeling that I’m not worthy still nags at me, deep in my mind. It’s the same feeling that tells me I rushed into marriage after a measly three years of dating. It tells me I’m still too fat, too poor, too mentally unstable to be someone’s wife. But I know, and my husband knows, that I’m none of those things. I’m human, we’re human, and we can accomplish anything, together.