A conversation with 20-year-old Fran about her wedding day
Frani Beard
2023—0720
I remember that day being incredibly chaotic—
I wanted to sing at my wedding. In my memory, my ex and I couldn’t seem to coordinate the song well. I got insecure and angry at my inability to play piano with him. We gave up. I remember that day being incredibly chaotic. We had our parents’ money to spend on a very small backyard wedding. We were the first kids in both of our families to get married. I was 20. He was 21.
We had no idea what we were doing. Nobody did. I remember wanting it to be over, to just run off to the beach and get away from all the guests. And I remember having to convince myself over the years that it was a beautiful day. That it was everything I wanted. That I was happy.
The only words I recall speaking that day were my vows, a too-long story about how I thought I was worthless until he noticed me. An ironic prayer about how I hope he grows and changes, that he never stays stagnant. The only time I cried was when I danced with my dad, because it broke my heart to leave him.
This past Sunday night, I hugged myself on my bed. I stretched my ribcage and turned my body into a fading moon. My right side was much more tense than the left, so I placed a loving hand on those stressed rib muscles as I straightened my body.
I hummed and vocalized. I sang a lullaby:
Where does it hurt? Where is the pain? What do you have to say? I’m here to protect you. I’m here to offer you care.
I took deep breaths and waited for my 20 year old self to feel brave, to be honest.
And I let myself cry. My precious body, my younger self cried too. She said, “I wanted to sing.”
I asked, “What else do you remember?”
She said, “I wanted to sing, and I don’t know why I didn’t. He didn’t let me. He didn’t want to sing, and so I couldn’t. I wanted to sing with him. I wanted him to help me sing.”
And I let myself cry.
I asked, “Do you remember the song?” And my body remembered the song, and we listened to it, and we sang it together.
And we both cried.
One of the first things that returned after the divorce was my desire to sing and be heard. Maybe that’s because one of the first things I lost was my voice. In hindsight, that longing felt incomplete and unsupported in me— hence the tightness in my diaphragm, the tension in my ribs, and being unable to support much breath, only enough to survive. To ache and know, I’m still living. It was never enough to hum alone in my room.
July is a sneakily painful month; my body has felt anxious, and I didn’t have time to ask her why. It makes sense though, because she has a better memory than me. She holds everything and protects me from so much.
I had a miscarriage that altered my relationship with my body on July 9th, 2019. My marriage was born on July 23rd, 2016. I see the dates on the calendar whenever I make plans.
7/23 is when all the gallons of milk expire at work. Doppelgängers with his energy and his colors order americanos, and I’m obliged to be nice despite my triggers— flashing me back to him ordering a 12 oz. americano, the tearing of raw sugar packets and the splashing of half and half. Remembering my own adoption of that exact drink as “the best” until a new love of cappuccinos emerged.
Everything is so tangled up in me, and I’ve spent the last year trying to unravel. I just want to be the softest, most fragile creature! I want to molt down to the most tender skin! I yell, Be careful with me, or else! It is my gift to ache, to be swollen and sore. Can you see how much I’ve allowed myself to feel? Do you hear it now that I sing again?
Cancer season is represented by the crab and the moon. The crab who shifts from vulnerable to self-protective, constantly outgrowing, then relieving the pressure of a shell too small by becoming raw and new.
And the moon observes the same pattern: I’m ready to be seen. I’m ready to grow. Witness me as I am. Let me be too much. Let me retreat. Let me shrink.
Let me start over again.
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