Sadly enough, what seems like a long time ago I read those words. Like everything else in the last 10 years pre-Twitter, we find out through text. I am so old that we were told certain things should not be said on the phone. They should be said in person. Little did I know that those same things will be read on the phone. The details are not important. Just know it did not happen recently. Just know that the phrase "felt bad at the time" does not quite cover it. I did not have a wedding dress nor was I trying any on. I don't want to paint anybody a villain. You can blame me for whatever expectations I shouldn't have but I was blindsided. It was not a fun episode of my life but it happened. You just live through it. Regardless how alone you feel. Regardless how foolish you think you might have looked. Having been through that I would like to speculate what happened two days ago in Changchun City. A woman was so emotionally distraught that she almost plummeted off a building with her wedding dress by her own volition.
By using armchair psychology and personal experience (albeit watered down compared to hers) let me try to delve deeper into what she was feeling at that moment. A feeling strong enough to even consider hitting a pavement about 6 stories below.
You have heard this a zillion times, "don't judge a man until or unless you have walked in their shoes". I have not been in that bride's shoes. They did not fit me. Still point being I can relate to the feeling somewhat. Reading others making unsympathetic remarks made me make this blog. You read a bit deeper in the story of the bride and you find out that her husband to be married another woman. That fact to me is not trivial in this case. Think about processing this: The groom is basically saying goodbye to the bride, they are no longer a couple. But for additional salt in the wound, that life the bride envisioned with the groom, the groom will have with someone else. All out of the blue. All at once. Crashing down like a ton of bricks all at one time, all in one place. What you saw in The Wedding Singer was quite mild.
Pete Townshend once sang a friend is friend nothing can change that. I am not sure how true that it is. If you watch the video by clicking the song title you see the little boy playing the giant Iron Man for a fool. He abused his trust.
Sometimes friends turn on you. Sometimes you can give them reason to turn. Sometimes they discard you on their own. None of us are perfect. I have made a ton of mistakes. How do you think I fill this blog?
If I make mistakes, then I realize that my friends make them too. I have to forgive them just as they have to forgive me for being human. Easier said than done.
"People who have treated like you like dirt are good for something. They can teach you empathy and how your own actions may be received by others so you don't end up doing the same thing. "
http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/notes/item/415
I wrote that a week ago because being somewhere I am seldom at triggered a memory. It's like Dexter with The Code and his step father. Great, I am now comparing myself to a fictional serial killer. I really try not to dwell in the past and if I do revisit hopefully its to further learn from experience and change course in my present direction if necessary.
What I was thinking when I wrote that was maybe what we are hurting from now, we may have done in the past or we can do in the future. When I was 14 I heard Tom Petty sing "There's no one as honest as those in pain". The problem is the only way to know that for sure is to be in the state of pain. Pain gives a certain clarity. Hopefully even pain can be a teacher. That our inconsideration hurts others. We choose to either end that cycle of pain or perpetuate it. Just being considerate solves a lot of problems and a lot of heartaches.
Your significant other should be your friend or else they don't deserve that space in your life. Romance is a two way street and we all get that. But if romance is not to be on one side, there should be at least the consideration of a friend. I said this a long time ago (since I am that old) but have not heard it anywhere: Your friends have way more potential to hurt you than your enemies. You trust your friends therefore you are vulnerable to them. You are guarded with your enemies. Your defenses are up.
The Trojan Horse was a gift. It was supposed to be a symbol of goodwill. Something accepted in trust. That is why the attack from within hurts so much. It is so devastating. Usually when you fight with regular enemies it's like two heavy battering rams meeting in the middle. Maybe not visually but symbolically.
When a friend let's you down it's like a chainsaw through jello. You don't see it coming and you just give it token protest. There is no contest. The psychological hit is so devastating that I can easily imagine what that girl went through.
There is a scene from Wedding Planner where the main male lead breaks off his originally scheduled wedding. If there ever was a proper way to call something off that would have been it. Movies are scripted, real life is not. I am referencing a chick flick. What has become of me?
"Do you hear that, Fezzik? That is the sound of ultimate suffering. My heart made that sound when the six-fingered man slaughtered my father. The Man in Black makes it now. His True Love is marrying another tonight who else has the cause for ultimate suffering?"
That is of course from The Princess Bride. One of my all time favorite movies.Clip provided below. Oddly enough the Princess Bride was either a topic of conversation or something I always gave a copy of to almost every woman I have dated more than once in the last 21 years. Maybe that's the secret to remaining unmarried that long. If you dated me more than once in the last 21 years and don't have a copy let me know. You are entitled. The concept of ultimate suffering is something you hope you don't relate to but probably do. When things like this happen. Where one party feels so critically aggrieved. The answer sometimes lies in the selfishness of the other party. Assuming that's true, would you want somebody that selfish as the most important relationship in your life?
One thing about the Internet is you can see different people's reaction to the same story. One person said the bride in China is fortunate to see that side of her groom before the wedding and not after. You may have also heard the expression Karma is a bit*h. If that groom was willing to do that to the original bride in the story, you can't tell me that flaw will never ever show up in his relationships again.
Let me tell you where I think the pain of the bride is coming from. I am no stranger to romantic rejection. In time every single one of them made sense. But the pain the jumping bride experienced comes from a different place I think. The pain of deception and concealment. Which is different from a straight forward rejection. Having this separate reality that she had no clue. Giving someone trust then hit on the middle of the forehead with a tire iron. In the immortal words of Rigby Reardon:
All dames are alike: they reach down your throat and they can grab your heart, pull it out and they throw it on the floor, step on it with their high heels, spit on it, shove it in the oven and cook the shit out of it. Then they slice it into little pieces, slam it on a hunk of toast, and serve it to you and then expect you to say, "Thanks, honey, it was delicious."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_piLm38E_U&feature=related (Dead Men)
The bride probably felt that moment of clarity that someone was in a spot that should be hers. A whole wedding happening that had nothing to do with her. In this post almost everything relates to the Princess Bride. The lyrics from the main song include the phrase "Its as real as the feelings I feel". I suspect those real feelings motivated her right out that window.
I suspect it's that's feeling of being alone drove her out that window. With God you are never alone. You just have to call on your faith.
There is another saying that God does not send you something you can't handle. I heard Carroll O'Connor tell CNN that when his son committed suicide. I have never had anything that drastic happen to me but it may be useful to take that to heart. I have had my bad days but they help put things in perspective and help you take stock of what's important. Besides, things you may have lost helped you find things you would not find otherwise. Obviously I needed friends to help get me through this. I thanked both of them recently, years after the fact. One remembers it well, the other completely forgot.
A song I would recommend to fight that feeling of being alone is the Peter Gabriel/ Kate Bush song Don't Give Up. The song does have that depressing mood to it to start. But it helps set up the mood for struggle we go through. The album So by Peter Gabriel is highly recommended. Specially to those that can't appreciate an album since there have been no good ones released in a long long time.
http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/13037/
This phrase seems to describe the isolation
No fight left or so it seems
I am a man whose dreams have all deserted
I've changed my face, I've changed my name
But no one wants you when you lose
This phrase helps describe the process of taking stock what you have.
Don't give up
You still have us
Don't give up
We don't need much of anything
Don't give up
'Cause somewhere there's a place
Where we belong
That shock to the system provides you an illusion that you are alone. Often times you are not. A good person attracts other good people. Stick to what you believe in and treat others well. Be like Guo Zhongfan and the others who helped Li instead of doing what most people would do nowadays. Take out their cell phones and video the event.
Ed
If you see no videos please go to http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1243 Videos Listed below:
1 & 2) Video entirely in Chinese of the bride who tried to jump. Identical, watch which ever is faster or works.
3) Ultimate Suffering from the Princess Bride
4) Rigby Reardon giving his grab your heart speech around the 11th minute.
5) Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush video for Don't Give Up
6) Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers perform the line there's no one as honest as those in pain.
7) Compilation of Scenes From The Princess Bride. Other songs are in the links themselves.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/jilted-bridetobe-tries-to-jump-from-window-16001972.html
A Chinese man performed an incredible rescue of a woman who tried to commit suicide after her boyfriend called off their wedding.
The man, a worker at the building in Changchun City, north-east China, held the 22-year-old woman after she tried to jump out of a seventh-floor window .
The bride, named Li, cut her wrists and tried to commit suicide after her boyfriend broke up with her just before their planned marriage.
Dressed in her wedding gown, 22 year-old college student, sat crying on the window ledge of the building before threatening to jump, saying she could not live with the fact that her fiancé had left her and married another woman just days before their wedding.
Police called her relatives after she dropped her bag containing her mobile phone from the building.
She was grabbed by Guo Zhongfan who held Li by her neck and arms as she dangled above the street, while a man in the apartment below reached out of the window and pushed Li's feet up, as she was pulled to safety.
Li was sent to hospital following her rescue. Policemen and relatives were unable to contact Li's former fiancé by phone.
Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/jilted-bridetobe-tries-to-jump-from-window-16001972.html#ixzz1Mx8zbqLj
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