I bought a dress.
It took nine stores, seven hours and thirty-eight minutes and a near nervous breakdown, but I bought a dress. And by god, it was gorgeous, that dress.
And hey, I felt pretty. The kind of glitter-in-the-air, ball drop, toasting champagne, butterflies in stomach, all things are possible kind of pretty.
Because I bought a dress.
Exhibit A: The Dress...
Full disclosure: I am not a particularly big fan of NYE. It plays symphonies out of my insecurities. My brain seems to pack it's bags and take a one way trip to the Twilight Zone whereupon we visit the years of Jillian past. It's not the prettiest of views, that landscape. It's lonely in my head, in that place. And I wrestle with the idea of belonging and feeling like I am still sitting at the lunch table in outcast territory, eating a stale pb&j, hoping that the lunch bell would just ring already. Because I am alone and exposed. But the bell doesn't ring and I sit there suspended in time, filling myself up with that sad, stale, longing.
That's it you know, that's why I hate the pomp and circumstance and revelry of NYE- the way the Times Square cameras pan the crowd showcasing the togetherness of it all. It tears at the deepest root of my fear and insecurity, that I am mistake. That even now, I do not belong.
It's been a solitary kind of year. Maybe one where I have been on this journey of trying to figure out where I belong in my own life. But if I'm honest, what I know on this side of the calendar is that, I am no closer to feeling more connected than I was when the ball dropped last year. I am still in this place of disconnect. And try as I might, I don't know how to cross the divide...
But back to the dress...
I was invited out to a NYE party this year. I played it cool, didn't get all overly dramatic about just how excited I was. But it felt to me a lot like being the kid at that lunch table- and here comes the most popular person in the school and suddenly you're being invited to a party on a school night with all of the coolest kids in the school- and maybe for a moment, you're not invisible, maybe for just a moment, someone see's you and in that moment, you belong to something more than just your loneliness and longing.
And it fills you up with this hope. And you need that hope. You need it more now than ever. Because after 364 days of trying to fit-in, you're exhausted and you need a spark. You need to know that maybe this year will be better than the last. That this year might just be a little more light and a little less heavy.
And so you buy a dress. Because you need that hope.
***Spolier Alert***
This is not the Rom Com where the girl wears the dress and we all get a happy ending in two hours or less.
Nope. Not this time.
On NYE, I woke up at 4am with a blinding migraine. Head in trash can, room spinning, vertigo, double vision, ringing in my ears, migraine. I was a wreck. But I told myself it might pass. It HAD to pass. So I took my Imitrex, got a cold compress, laid as still as possible and tried to will it all away.
By noon I could stand up and walk a semi-straight line. And so as planned, I drove to the airport to pick up one of my best friends. By the time he arrived. He ended up having to drive us both back home. Not only did he have to drive, he went above and beyond in friend duties and took me to 3 different urgent cares until we found one that both took my insurance and had the least amount of wait time. And with a hug and a sad wave goodbye, I watched as he walked away, off to that NYE party and I hung my head down in my hands and tried not to cry. I sat in that cold waiting room for nearly four hours, every minute sinking me down further than the last. Two rounds of injections later, I drove myself home, crying the whole way. I was a hot mess. Way less hot. Emphasis on mess.
Because I bought a dress.
And there was a version of myself that was supposed to be wearing that dress at that party, sitting at the cool kids table, feeling infinite. But that was not how it played out. Maybe that's another film, for another girl, wearing another dress, on another night...
I fell asleep crying.
In the days that followed, I felt myself on the verge of some inner collapse. Because maybe I was still fumbling for the reset button. But the reset button seemed to be wrapped up in that dress that was still hanging in my closet. It was as if I was suspended in gravity, just orbiting Saturn once again. Round and round and round. Again.
I was wrestles. I needed to untangle my thoughts. And so I wrote. I wrote until it made sense. I wrote until the ink grounded my body.
Exhibit B: Gravity
Gravity, oh gravity
All their eyes are watching for a sign
And careful not to blink
Because she’s light on her feet
And the net beneath her will not hold
And maybe she wasn’t built to carry it alone
The words she spoke out loud
And all the still frames on repeat
And a chance that she might meet
Another searching soul
Gravity, oh gravity
Could you kiss her when the clock strikes twelve?
And tell her that she’s beautiful
And not a beautiful mistake
For another selfish man to make
And maybe all she needs is to know that at the end
She can still begin again
Can we all begin again, oh gravity
And she’d like to pack up this tent
And tear down this show
But there’s no slowing down
And no stopping now
No stopping now, oh gravity-
And she’s been a high wire girl
In a circus built by lies
With a heart forged just like a tilt-a-whirl
Gravity, oh gravity
All their eyes are watching for a sign
Careful not blink
Because she’s light on her feet
And maybe it’ll be more than another string of
Three hundred and sixty-five regrets
A little less fear
A little more hope
And a chance that she might meet
Another searching soul
A little less bitter
A little more sweet
Because she needs to know that
Someone still sees her
Gravity, oh gravity
Could you hold her in your arms when the second-hand stops?
While the revelry is roaring
Could you whisper in her ears that it’s okay for her to rest
And maybe tell her that’s she brave
And not just for how far she’s come
But maybe for the fact that she still got up today
And can’t you see her there
Standing in her party dress
Hands grasping for some kind of new
Oh gravity, gravity
And she’s light on her feet
And now, they’re all toasting their champagne
While Auld Lang Syne begins to play
And she’s still clinging to her glass
And waiting for someone around her to ask
If she’ll take a cup of kindness yet
Because maybe now she would
And she’s searching for a sign
Because she’s light on her feet
And maybe a chance that she might meet
Another searching soul
Gravity, oh gravity
She’s waiting for to see what your diamond drop will bring
So let the countdown commence
Five
Four
Three
Two
One
Gravity, oh gravity
Welcome to midnight
Welcome to midnight~
...
I stare at that dress hanging in my closet. I keep telling myself that I need to return it. I wondered if in the returning, that I could somehow buy back the five, four, three, two, one of NYE. But even still, that dress remained a shadow over me.
I think about the Auld Lang Syne, that hope for newness, you know that 'should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind..,'- I think about the reset. Because maybe for me, the welcome to midnight is an invitation to believe that better days are coming. Maybe for me, when the clock strikes midnight and the ball drops and the fireworks light up the sky, perhaps it is our cue that we can all begin again.
That I can begin again.
I carry that burden with me over the next few days. My body weighted down with this anti-climactic ending, with this interrupted beginning. With a dress hanging in my closet, holding the fabric of my unspoken hope for a version of myself that is... possible, that is possible.
Six days post NYE, I am sitting on a couch next to my favorite person watching the Falcons/ Rams game with some of my most favorite people. And something starts to settle. And I don't fully realize it at that moment. But I sense it. And so I sit there on that couch in that room absorbing some kind of delayed drop. Some kind of delayed rightness.
And as I walk to my car under the pale of the moon, after the last hug goodnight, after the turning of my engine, after the first red light, and somewhere halfway down an empty freeway- ironically at 11:59pm, it hits me, this delayed moment- where maybe for the first time in a long time, all is calm, and all is bright. Because I belonged on that couch. And maybe I couldn't articulate it past that point but my head and my heart met at that place and I knew it to be true, that I belonged there.
A stone throw past midnight, I am taking my make-up off, staring at the woman in the mirror. Thinking about that dress. Aching for the hope of "possible-" I close my eyes and think of the next 358 days. I think of all of the endings and all of the beginnings that I have ever known- I think of all of the endings and all of the beginning's that I have yet to know- I think to myself that it was, and it will be- And as I turn the lights out, I call a truce with the kid at the lunch table. And I send my regards to Saturn.
Because I bought a dress.
And maybe it was just a dress, and that was just a party, and just a night that passed, one to mark off the calendar. And maybe there will be a hundred more dresses, and a hundred more parties, on a hundred different nights- each one of them breaking at the seams with "possible." Each one of them wearing the fabric of a new story, not yet written, bearing it's own five, four, three, two, one-
I think about that dress hanging up in my closet and I think to myself that maybe I'm going to keep it after all.
Because I bought a dress. And I'm going to wear that dress.
And maybe that will be a story that I will tell you one day.
Anything's possible.
Welcome to midnight.
Welcome to the begin again.
Here I go...
-Jillian Nichole, content owner of a brand new party dress, and an unwritten story...
