Happy to have finished a difficult semester, I worked full time in the bridal salon over the summer and spent ample time with Devin. Devin had not worked the previous term in order to improve his grades. Instead, he met me. After finishing high school, Devin had been employed as a fire fighter for the Parks Service in Oregon. He developed a love of nature that motivated him to enroll in college and pursue a degree in biology. He hoped to begin a career as a botanist or earn a master’s degree in forestry. Devin took a job after finals working in a landscaping nursery. He cared for the plants, loaded trucks and assisted customers. It was the ideal situation for the sturdy young man who enjoyed hard work outdoors. He also valued the opportunity to learn to identify various species of vegetation.

We both kept busy schedules working and saving money. The bridal salon consumed all of my productive time and captured my interest in a way nothing had since I learned to do a three-turn. A bridal salon is a microcosm of women’s culture. In addition to my fascination with the beautiful textiles and ever-changing designs, I learned about the lives and experiences of women. While most women are at their best during an engagement, others become nervous and deal poorly with stress. If the bride is generally a blissful, pleasant character; her mother often is not. The mother may not like the groom-to-be or have difficulty getting along with her own daughter. She may exert control by disagreeing vehemently about every wedding detail. I preferred to disappear into the stock room rather than witness daughters crying helplessly as their mothers berated them. In the salon, I observed enviable mother-daughter relationships and those that mirrored my own.

Amazingly, many women openly shared their lives with their bridal consultant. I enjoyed quiet afternoons helping the few brides who would come to the salon on a weekday. Instead of dragging their mothers along, many progressive women chose the companionship a friend for this important shopping excursion. In the quiet dressing area, I would help the bride into gown after gown while she, her friend and I talked. They usually stayed an hour or more. Most brides did not make a decision on the first visit, but clients came back to the same consultant when they were ready to buy. By then, I often knew the women’s life story and romantic history.

Their tales of disappointment, failure and heartbreak made me feel less unique in my own situation. I needed to know girls other than Zoë and I were dissatisfied with their childhoods or had problems dealing with their families. These inspirational brides found happiness and love in their lives and somehow managed to overcome the unfortunate circumstances that once seemed insurmountable. Unknowingly, they performed a great service by renewing my faith in the future and myself. Perhaps I could learn to live with the distress of my parents denying my interest in skating that ultimately devalued me as an individual.

Not all of the women shared negative experiences. I coveted some of their apparently charmed existences. Some succeeded in difficult academic pursuits; others earned lucrative salaries in respected careers. Some women attended college on athletic or academic scholarships while others skated as children. They enjoyed happy relationships with their families. The most envied brides resembled a photography layout in a wedding magazine. This beautiful young woman was educated, earned a good salary in a job she enjoyed and was marrying a man she adored who presented her with an enormous diamond. One bride who fit the description perfectly glowed as she displayed an engagement ring on each hand and told me she had not decided which prince to marry. Although I doubted that she loved either of her suitors, I was amazed that two men wanted to marry this one woman. I longed to be one of those “magazine perfect” brides.

Sooner or later, all walks of feminine life pass through a bridal boutique. I helped brides find gowns for a fourth or fifth marriage and dressed eighteen-year-olds to marry their high school sweethearts. We had dresses that hid pregnancy and others that accommodated it. Religious girls selected modest, pretty dresses. Independent free-spirits picked the latest design sensation. Glamour queens wanted their breasts to spill from an open neckline. I clipped petite girls into sample gowns that smothered their figures then held up the same gowns to obese women who could not dream of trying them on. The salon had an extensive selection of wedding apparel to accommodate all tastes, sizes and budgets. While most gowns are ordered from the manufacturer based on a standard sample, this shop could dress virtually any woman with an off-the-rack frock.

One of the larger brides looked in the mirror sadly. Admiration for the dress transformed into self-loathing. She glanced at me helplessly. Although she was roughly my age, I was built like a tall skater, and we could not have been more physically mismatched. “I wish I could have a figure like yours for my wedding,” she admitted.

First I pitied her, then I pitied myself. “You are the one getting married, not me.”

A smile broke on the pudgy girl’s face as she rediscovered her happiness.

Working with people made me aware of the imperfections in lives other than my own. During the years I funded my education in a bridal shop, my healing process began. Had the field been more lucrative, I probably would have continued to work in bridal retail.

When Devin and I returned to school in the fall, I took the second semester of general chemistry and Devin revisited the first course. He also embarked on a major mechanical project rebuilding a car engine and installing it in an unscathed body to replace the old wreck he had been driving. The effort consumed his time away from school and the nursery. We saw each other on campus and usually Saturday night. Unfortunately, the car filled hours that he should have spent studying and trying to earn a passing mark in chemistry. But Devin had become discouraged and diverted his attention to a more obtainable goal.

Determined to improve my grades, I approached chemistry with great resolve. I did not intend to repeat my foolish mistake on the first midterm of the fall semester. While Devin tinkered, I devoted my evenings to serious study. I entered the lecture hall for the midterm after clocking dozens of hours of focused preparation. As I turned over my test and read through it, I began to panic. The whiteness of the paper intimidated me. The voids between the typed questions loomed empty and frightening. I could think of no wisdom to fill their blankness. All of the formulae, definitions and problem solving tactics over which I had labored vanished from my mind, and I stared at the stapled white sheets barely remembering to scribble my name on the first page. After fifteen minutes of desperation, I turned in my exam and fled the room.

I never suffered from test anxiety in high school or during my first two years of college. However, I had established a goal to excel in chemistry and probably over-prepared for the midterm. I thought a good grade in a subject that daunted other students would bolster my self-worth. Freezing on that test and earning my first failing score did just the opposite. I sat outside the Student Union waiting for Devin to finish his botany lab. He comforted me and looked at the miserable drawings that had provided a meager distraction from my disappointment. Devin knew academic failure and did not view it as the devastating force that made me spend much of the afternoon with my head down in the library. When he reminded me that I still had time to drop the course and start fresh in the spring, I decided to persevere since I preferred not to set my graduation back a semester or attend summer school unnecessarily. I had already wasted seventeen credit hours in the foreign language department.

As I struggled to improve my position in chemistry and perform adequately in other courses, I only skated occasionally. I may have relaxed with an infrequent skate in the garage or the rink near Devin’s home. Overall, I did little ice skating during my college years. In addition to the open-air mall rink, there was another ice arena in Sacramento, which had been converted to a cheese factory while I was still in high school or maybe even earlier. I never skated there. The mall rink did not survive beyond my high school graduation either. Other rinks may have existed within a less convenient commute, but I strayed from ice skating and never researched them. While in college, I also neglected roller skating because my heavy course load, job in the bridal shop, and relationships with Devin and other friends more than filled my time. I succeeded in staying away from the damaging influence of my mother, who for the most part left me alone. Both of my parents respected my industriousness, loosened their grasp and belittled me less frequently.

I wish I had taken more time for skating. I should have looked for an ice arena or pursued artistic roller skating lessons. Already a year ahead of my contemporaries, I could have afforded to slow my pace and invest newly found time and the money I earned working on skating. As a young woman, my body was strong, slim and healthy. I could have learned jumps much more easily as a teenager than as a thirty-year-old. I certainly did not need to spend so much time hanging around with Devin and socializing. I never consciously “gave up on skating”. At no time did I intentionally decide not to skate anymore. Instead, I replaced one fantasy with another.

Professionally, I succeeded as a bridal consultant. Academically, I showed promise in the sciences. Unfortunately, my talent for fashion sketching was limited. While I may have possessed brilliant foresight for fashion trends and innovative styles, I lacked the ability to communicate these ideas on a sketchpad. Although I dedicated myself to improvement, other students created great works of art while my efforts barely emulated the examples in the textbook. As diligently as I roller skated in the garage and learned to do back camels by watching other people, I fought to develop as a designer. I also discovered that I despised lengthy sewing projects that lingered in various stages of disarray before reaching completion. I lost interest before finishing them. Garments hung in my closet without sleeves or unlined because I became bored and abandoned them. This mentality was reflected in my grades. While other students handed in meticulously hand-finished projects, mine started out well but concluded with haste and exasperation.

In my third year of college, I never contemplated changing my major again. I wanted to graduate and find a way to earn a living away from my parents’ home. A new major or a reduced schedule to accommodate skating lessons meant more time living at home, and I could not make that compromise. I had to do the best I could with my decisions and forge ahead toward my diploma. I began to take responsibility for my life. Rather than skating, my immediate goal involved achieving adult independence and self-respect.

I had the ideal opportunity to demonstrate my autonomy when Devin asked me to spend a weekend in Lake Tahoe with him. My father voiced no objections to the excursion. Devin and I had dated for several months, and my father had accepted the young man. At nineteen years old, I held a steady job and maintained decent grades in college. However, my mother absolutely opposed the trip. She seemed to believe it was her duty to preserve my chastity and was viciously angry with my father for agreeing to let me go. They argued the matter in front of me and after I ran to my room in tears. When my father failed to defend my interests and let my mother luxuriate in victory, I knew I could tolerate no more. I imagined a similar scene transpiring between them regarding my defunct skating lessons. Filled with rage and determination, I phoned Zoë. Remembering our sleepovers and childish plans to share a bachelorette pad, I asked to move in with her. Zoë enthusiastically agreed.

Instead of taking me to Tahoe, Devin spent the weekend helping me move into Zoë’s small apartment. Both of Zoë’s parents had passed away and left her with a trust fund for her education. She used some of the money to liberate herself from her grandparents’ house. She also attended the State College and earned a good salary as a commissioned salesperson for a department store. Because Zoë remained in high school while I started college, we grew apart. As the reality of sharing her privacy with another person dawned on my friend, we began to disagree about everything until life became miserable for both of us. To pay rent and expenses, I had to accept additional hours at the bridal shop and my schoolwork began to suffer. When my father graciously suggested that I move back home, I accepted with my tail between my legs. My first venture into financial independence was a catastrophe and my friendship with Zoë never completely rebounded.

Easing the transition, my mother had embarked on a month-long tour of Europe. I did not have to look at her gloating face as Devin lugged my crap back into the house. While I lived on my own, my relationship with Devin blossomed. We began to discuss marriage, and I was absolutely elated. Devin was a good man who placed me at the center of his universe. We planned to wait until both of us graduated to marry which made sense to us, his parents, and my father. Since she was gallivanting around the Mediterranean, my mother did not immediately hear the joyous news.

During a private discussion, my father suggested that Devin come to work for his general contracting business. My father knew Devin was not in line for the Nobel Prize, a scholarship to graduate school, or the job he wanted with the Forest Service. But my father respected Devin’s kind personality and aptitude for hard work. He began to think of Devin as a son-in-law, which should have made me happy. I knew my mother thought Devin was not tall enough, handsome enough or smart enough to marry me, but I did not give a damn about her opinion. She never behaved as though she held me in high esteem, so these superficial excuses merely disguised her desire to sabotage my happiness. Actually the idea of being shackled to my parents via Devin’s potential career with my father terrified me. While Devin would earn a productive living doing something he would undoubtedly enjoy, we could never move away from Sacramento or pursue our interest in graduate school. Although Devin and I both wordlessly accepted that he was not graduate school material, I ignored this reality and continued to research options for further education.

For a few weeks, Devin and I played “let’s get engaged”. We looked at china patterns, diamond rings, and I tried on wedding gowns. It was remarkable fun in much the same way that Zoë and I enjoyed planning to share an apartment. I fancied myself the “magazine bride”: young, educated and beautiful with a bright professional future. Other than accompanying me on shopping excursions or to bridal fairs, Devin acted the part of a necessary extra in this fantasy. When he prepared to order one of the hundreds of engagement rings we evaluated, my stomach churned. I thought I would either vomit on the jewelry counter or faint to the red carpeted floor. The skin on my face tingled and I whispered to Devin that I felt sick and needed air. Assuming I simply had the jitters, he promptly took me home.

I avoided him for days using study for finals and completion of design projects as a convenient and believable excuse. I pulled a “C” in my second chemistry class and Devin failed his third and final attempt at general chemistry. The biology department sent him an official letter informing him that he would have to declare another major. When Devin and I met after finals, we did not talk about our wedding. He sorted through his options and tried to accept that he would probably never fulfill his ambition of becoming a botanist. While someone else snatched my skating dream away from me, Devin’s dream dissolved due to his own inherent deficiencies. He spent hours flipping through the university catalogue looking for majors that did not require general chemistry.

In the spring while Devin floundered in school, he lucked into an offer he could not refuse. One of the landscape contractors, whose trucks Devin loaded regularly; recognized his strong work ethic, knowledge of plants and interesting ideas for landscape design. The man offered Devin an apprenticeship with his company that could lead to a career suitable for Devin’s talents and interests. After completing the spring semester, he went to work for the contractor full time and did not return to college in the fall. We saw each other less and less until our relationship eventually disintegrated.

Meanwhile, I regretfully acknowledged my substandard ability as an artist and developed a keen interest in bridal consumer behavior. The decision-making processes utilized by women purchasing wedding gowns fascinated me. At the close of my junior year, new goals and intellectual ideas began to form in my mind.

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