July 20, 2013. It was supposed to be a momentous occasion — the day I would walk down the aisle in my lace wedding gown, sunflowers in hand, my best friend at my side, with everyone I’ve ever truly cared about watching…. However the world had different plans for me. For us.
“the” dress
This past Saturday will forever go down in the history of my life as the day I did not become Mrs. Charlotte Fowler. The day I did not put on the beautiful white dress. The day I did not meet my future husband at the end of the aisle. The day I did not say I do.
But it will also go down in history as the day I buried that horse in the ground.
I think that whenever you have something happen in your life that brings you to your knees and breaks you down and apart and into what feels like a million pieces, regaining some kind of balance can almost feel impossible. I know now, that it isn’t. I believe that as I sit here, a very different person from when this all began, everything, and I mean all of it, saved me in some way. I’m significantly healthier and although the fine-tuning of feeling better is still going on, I’m learning to really be myself. For the longest time I felt trapped somehow, unable to feel ok in my own skin. Walking away from my engagement was the hardest decision I’ve ever made, but I’ve grown into a better human being.
I celebrated July 20th, not with tears and pain, but instead with a smile, fond memories I will never forget (and will always carry close to my heart) and surrounded by incredible people who love me. Happy events we know how to celebrate. Weddings, new babies, Bar Mitzvahs. Got it. There’s a whole infrastructure in place: what to wear, what to say, what favors to dispense. But when it comes to the “bummer” times, it’s easy to feel a little lost. Recently people have begun throwing Divorce Parties so why not a Cancelled Wedding Day Celebration?
Ann Patchett once described her broken relationship as a train she could no longer imagine jumping off. Patchett married her train. I decided to jump off…. But I had no idea what it would actually feel like once the “big day” finally came. Would I fall apart? Would I talk to him? Would I make the guy I’m dating now uncomfortable? When I pictured broken engagements, I saw distraught brides in already-purchased Vera Wang, drinking the now-melted ice cream out of the tub of Ben n Jerry’s in their lap. I thought it was something you suffered in private, like an STD.
My friends, did not see it this way. Instead they saw the day as a reason to celebrate. A day to toast to the past and where it has brought me. A day to get it all out so I can resume life as previously scheduled…. and I can only thank these beautiful people for helping me go from the girl I was when I decided to leave Zack and move to Austin, to the girl I am today. 
