TToT 22:2 The vainglorious edition

Anyone who’s been hanging out here lately will know that there’s been a big ‘to do’ about me trying veryvery hard to Look Like A Girl for a Top Secret Event this weekend.

FINALLY I can tell you.

It was a hen party (that’s bachelorette, for anyone who’s American at home) for a friend, with a ‘Hollywood Glamour’ theme.

My attempts to prepare were thwarted by anxiety, because I’m all too used to being the fat, unattractive person with bad fashion sense. And even though much of this has changed due to hard work and a certain amount of trying-to-like-myself-a-bit-better, I’m still not very fashionable. And I knew I needed help.

So last weekend I bugged the heck out of everyone, asking which of several dresses to get. And which of my pre-existing shoes would go with said dress.

The resounding votes were for dresses B and C, in almost equal number. I took this on board.

Then there were the shoes:

Again, the main choices were B and C. 

So I racked my brains and chatted with various friends online until I’d driven them to distraction, and could almost see them tearing their hair out on the other end of the internet. And went with dress B and shoes D.

Obviously.

Then, dress ordered, I began to panic. The REST of me needed to look good as well – not just the dress and the shoes! I needed to look PRETTY! (this is where Clark starts advising his downsprings to take notes…) Because now that I was entering into the field of competition, I wanted to make sure that I could go down with all guns blazing, rather than as a damp squib.

So with anxiety buzzing at the inside of my mind, I made a list of the New, Girl Things I would need to effect the transformation.

• New bra
• Lipstick
• False eyelashes
• False nails?
• Stockings? (and if so, hold-ups or a suspender belt?)

Panic set in, and I wound up being told by someone who is both wise and beautiful and who totally gets me, that I was worrying TOO MUCH about this. Because in the end, it wasn’t the clothes which count, but the ME, and she thought that the ME was probably fine and just tending a little towards the self-obsessed side (I paraphrase).

That said, she also wanted there to be more time so she could send me some stockings to help me feel pretty, so that helped a little.

So today I SHOPPED! I took my sister (fashion advisor supreme) and bought everything on the list (bar the false nails, because we thought that was probably a step too far, and unnecessary). Then we came back home and I tried it all on, just to check, and to take some photographs for you (cos I know you’ve been waiting).

           

I tottered down the road to the party (getting pleasingly wolf-whistled at by someone in a passing car) where we played Hollywood-Glamour-themed games and chatted to people we all didn’t know, and celebrated the bride-to-be in the most glorious way. It was a beautiful, beautiful evening full of glamour and people connecting because of nothing more than a shared connection with the bride-to-be.

Then I ruined it all (but also didn’t ruin it at all) by getting very drunk.

Because all day I’ve been trying to avoid the fact that it’s the first anniversary of losing Jesse, my firstchild. My neverborn. Because I had to take my sister to the other end of town for lunch at a different Subway branch than the one I poured him away in, because I was too stupid and too proud to admit that I needed to stay home and not go to town with friends a year ago. Because I was too afraid of what was happening to stop and accept it, and wait, and mourn. And I came home from the party six-drinks-pissed and HILARIOUS, which turned rapidly into maudlin and sorrowful, until (prompted) I reached out for Husby and disturbed his computer game time to ask for a hug.

And then I broke down completely. Into tiny, shattered pieces of grief for the mother I should have been, and the three-month-old I would be holding in my arms if life were remotely fair. And Husby wrapped me around with his arms and his love and held me for ages while I ugly-cried, and he KNEW. He knew how bad it was and how awful and how terrible that our firstbaby is gone, and our secondbaby should’ve been due next weekend, and is also gone. And how much it hurts (even if it’s different for him), and how no matter if we have another, we’ll still miss them both.

And how much we want them back.

And how thankful, in whatever way it is, that we had the chance, and the honour, to be their parents – even if they were gone before we ever got the chance to know them.

Which all just goes to show (looking back at those photos) what a very good liar I can be; even to myself…

 Your hosts

A Fly on our (Chicken Coop) Wall, Considerings, Finding Ninee, Getting Literal, Home On Deranged, I can say mama, I Want Backsies, Rewritten, Thankful Me, The Wakefield Doctrine

An InLinkz Link-up