10. My Life as A Wife

Healthy
20 to 25 is the stage of my life that I look back on as my favorite. I refer to 20 as the time I became a person, and 25 is the age I was when I got married. In this stage I went through a lot of those growing up things that people do at that age. I experienced a lot of things that were foreign to what I had known as a kid. I kind of thought I was crazy. I liked and met other crazy people. I learned there is good crazy and bad crazy. Of course you should try to avoid the latter. I dressed according to my moods. I was a person that people remembered at that time. My sister knew everyone while she lived here and they always knew who I was when she said who her sister was. I didn’t know those people. I did not know how to play the game. I think I felt comfortable with trees. I always carried my notebook with me wherever I went so I could write whatever I needed to write. My heart was broken. I was strong. I knew all the best people. I could always get the guy I wanted. I was flying. I was crashing. When I talked to a counselor, he said I wasn’t insane. He said I was healthy.

Plow
At 25, Dave asked me to marry him. I’m sure I started this idea with questions like, Why don’t people get married? None of our friends did. You know, rockstars and all. I wondered, what’s the difference? People do not like being cheated on whether you’re married or not. So he had to take the next step and ask me. This is how he is. Always plowing forward, at least hopefully forwards, always plowing.

Rebels
His band had a lot of negativity towards the concept. How generic and normal it was to get married. In my mind it was the most radical thing to do cuz we were rebelling against the rebels. Cuz the rebels all do the same things as each other, tattoos, drugs, stay up late, go to Amsterdam. Clothing was very serious. You had to look cool. I felt the need to rebel against my surroundings. Do something radical.

Business Venture
At this point, I knew that marriage was not an answer, was not actually that romantic. That marriage was more of a lifestyle change, maybe a business venture. I told Dave no sentiment in this relationship. Cuz I knew that didn’t work. We were definitely in love but I had an idea that kind of thing didn’t last. He asked me to marry him and it took me awhile to say yes. I decided to try it cuz I wanted to try something new. I was bored of the endless circles of dating.

New Purse
I was not prepared for my life as a wife. The wife of Dave, the guy in a band with a little critical success in England. I wasn’t enamored with the idea of being a wife in the first place. Dave would say this is my wife, Mary. My wife this, my wife that. I always felt like he was referring to something that sounded like a purse. I’d like to show you my purse. My purse, Mary. See my new purse. I call it Mary.

Play The Game
So there is one loss there. I lost my last name cuz I didn’t think it mattered that much and here I am constantly in the shadow of my lovely husband. I went from being this visible person to this exceedingly invisible person. And I was crushed. Even at that tiny level of fame that his band had, I was unable to deal with what was going on. Going from a local way of thinking to a sort of international way of thinking. I was not impressed. I saw the behind the scenes. These were still just normal people. But somehow they were better than me. There was an entire mindset I was now dealing with that if you weren’t signed on a label or if you weren’t a person that helped these people climb the ladder of their “success”, you were no one. And it wasn’t just the band. It was also the people surrounding the band. It was never fun and you had to keep your mouth shut and play the game.

New Shoes
Not everyone was like that fortunately. I remember ambling along to a gig with the My Bloody Valentine people, and Belinda turned to Dave’s new purse and said, “How do you like my new shoes? Aren’t they funny?”

11/9/03