There are many things I didn’t do when I got divorced seven years ago at the age of 34: I didn’t set up a divorce registry; I didn’t throw my arms out behind me like wings while walking across a car park; I didn’t send an announcement that I was consciously uncoupling with a picture of me and my ex sitting on a lawn in happier times; I didn’t throw a party; I didn’t order a cake iced with “Boy, bye”; I didn’t erase all traces of my married life, burn love letters or throw my rings into the sea.
I don’t disapprove of these things – I laughed out loud when I came across the “Boy, bye” cake online recently, and if a paparazzo had cared he could have caught me dancing down the road that first divorcee summer – but what I most remember about that time was a feeling of plotlessness. I had chosen to come off the conventional path. What next? Not this, I kept saying, working my way slowly and haphazardly towards the things that did feel right. One of the first of those things was selling my wedding dress. I had felt beautiful in it, and though I didn’t want to wear it again, it wasn’t because it felt cursed. I could let it go. I feel happy when I think of someone else unknowingly giving that gown new life. I bought a new dress in silk jersey, covered in poppies, primroses and blue hydrangeas.
