Reflexive Retroactivity: Or, My Engagement
Because you’re curious, I will describe it to you in detail, but I’m warning you now: it will produce in you an implacable envy. Once you know the details, you’ll be unable to resist comparing your life to mine. With each romantic experience, every new girlfriend, and one day, with your future wife, you’ll remember the details of my engagement, like it belongs to you. It doesn’t. Our lives are intrinsically linked in history, and by your decision, completely separate.
He and I had a particularly difficult 2024. There were interpersonal dramas, and our therapists plunged us into the depths of inner child healing at the same time. We had many discussions surrounding our futures and what we could do to be one percent happier every day. There was little to cling to but each other, and we often left claw marks.
Still, a few days before my birthday, we were walking through Williamsburg–Brooklyn, not Virginia. I moved away after you and I broke up–and he stopped as we passed my favorite indie-vegan-ethically sourced-jeweler. His hand tugged on mine, pulling me inside. The store pumped a dry heat through the wood-panelled walls.
He’d made an appointment, and when they called his name, I laughed. Here I thought he’d maybe toy with buying me Jenny Slate pearl earrings or a Phoebe Bridgers tennis bracelet. Instead, our jeweler slid rings on my fingers, asking me my opinion of each. I have long fingers, which I used to consider thin and sightly till I tried on sample engagement rings. Most caught on my knuckle, unable to push further down.
When asked my opinion, I remembered I liked Emma Stone’s engagement ring. The salesperson clapped their hands.
“We have it!”
It sat raised on my finger, flanked by small diamonds. I examined it, my head tilting in either direction.
“Now, a pearl is a soft stone.” The salesperson said, and tapped at it with their fingernail, “So if you’re a high-activity person,” they said this with a certain condescension, “this might not be your ring.”
This might not be my ring. It might be the right person, but not the right ring. And vice versa.
We determined I was, in fact, a high-activity person. We spent the latter half of our appointment toying with an emerald cut diamond, set in a gold band, and a marquis and emerald toi et moi. We paired each with an assortment of wedding bands. They brought us champagne. My fiancé was presented with wedding bands to match. I shook my head at him, all of a sudden feeling too adult.
I asked for time to think. Though once returned to the salty winter air, slush coating the sidewalks, I’d already made my choice. I picked the emerald cut. The toi et moi, too trendy. The emerald resembled my mother’s first engagement ring, which felt like a good sign.* It stares at me now as I type, catching the light and blinding me every so often.
*My mother was proposed to four times, by four different men. She’s just THAT GIRL.
In the spring, my fiancé picked me up unexpectedly at work. I hadn’t known he was in the neighborhood. We went for coffee. His backpack sat under the table, his hand clutched the handle, his body stiff, eyes darting.
“Oh–I get it.” I smiled, taking a sip of my matcha, “You picked up the ring.”
He laughed, in mock surprise, “What?! No! What ring?” He clutched the backpack to his chest like a school kid.
The day of, he’d made me a hair appointment. I found my mother and my best friend at the salon. We shared knowing looks and heavy sighs. It was forecast to rain all day, but the sun broke out while we were shuttling between the salon and the undisclosed proposal location.
I thought he’d do it in Dumbo or Domino, since we’d lived in Brooklyn for two years at that point. But the Uber took us into Manhattan, to the west side. We got out at Strawberry Fields, where someone played “Imagine” on his guitar. I rolled my eyes.
Two old men called after me, “That is a beautiful dress, young lady.” My best friend laughed and clutched my hand. My mother leaned in to them, whispered as she passed, “She’s about to get engaged.”
My heart was in my throat, and I kept trying to swallow it down. My best friend handed me a letter from my fiancé. I blinked back tears, “He’s not gonna get me yet!” I said through clenched teeth.
The walk to him felt interminable, my heels clacking against the asphalt, my hands clenched at my sides. He was by the Bow Bridge. I wondered if he’d found it on his own or had googled “most romantic spots in Central Park.”
I was keenly aware of stopped traffic, onlooking tourists. There was someone in a paddle boat who’d abandoned paddling to record us. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket, and it shook violently. My heels sank into the sodden grass. I couldn’t stop giggling.
I remember flashes. Like swatting a bug out of the air that had rudely interrupted the moment. I remember seeing his face from above, his soft smile as he dropped to a knee. I remember hearing myself say “yes.” My adrenaline was too high to register little else than the key plot points.
We passed two other couples having engagement photos taken. I congratulated them both, and each gave us weird looks. I didn’t know we’d entered a Bride War situation. We took a downtown C train to our favorite bar, our friend snapping photos between tired commuters and charmed tourists. We waited for our transfer at West Fourth. Without any context, other than me wearing white, with a ring on my hand, we looked like we were on a typical Tuesday night date. Still, an NYU student stopped dead in her tracks.
“Did you just get engaged?”
“Yes!” I chirped.
“Can I hug you?”
“Yes!” I laughed. We hugged, and she called congratulations over her shoulder as she ran to catch her train.
I knew my friends and family would be waiting for us at the bar. We entered, the outlines of their bodies huddled together in the darkened back of the bar.
I spent the rest of the night spinning in the center of the room, spilling an endless supply of martinis, and waving the right finger of my left hand around. At the end of the night, we piled into an Uber and spoke in hushed tones. I fell asleep before we reached Brooklyn.
I smooth my hands over the skirt of a wedding gown. The quartet of women who’ve come with coo each time the curtain opens, but I can tell which don’t suit me. This hits at my hips bizarrely, showcasing each incorrect turn my body makes.
To each ill-fitting dress, they offer platitudes like,
“This would be a dress you’d wear if you were getting married in a barn.”
“–in New York.”
“–at 20.”
Eventually, I slip into a dress we’ve nicknamed the ghostly lover.
I try on a veil, and think of you. I’m handed a mock bouquet, and I smile. I’m surrounded by my friends’ phones, taking pictures. I put a hand over my heart, feeling my pulse in my palm, and think of him.
I whisper, my voice thick with brimming emotion, “I can’t wait to marry him.”
This sentiment is met with a chorus of “aw” and the crinkling sound of tissues being removed from their plastic wrapping.
The salesperson holds my shoulders, an overly familiar gesture, but I lean into her touch. She asks the questions all bridal salons are required to ask. I say yes, and ask my mom to fish a credit card from my purse.
I’m marrying him, and he, me. But as I ease out of the white satin pumps and pull on pleb’s clothes, I wonder what would happen if our paths had never merged. If I’d picked the wrong ring, the wrong dress. If I picked you.
He and I met under odd circumstances, while you and I were still dating. I like saying it that way, for the momentary scandalization I watch pass over people’s faces. I then quickly modify the statement, “No, no–I wanted him to ask for my number, but he didn’t notice I was flirting.”
Our relationship ended, and he and I met again six months later, with his hand outstretched to meet mine as he said, “Haven’t we met before?” I pretended we hadn’t, trying to maintain my cool.
While he and I got acquainted with each other’s music tastes and sick day comfort watches, you tried to wriggle your way back into my life. You texted me unwarranted updates and unsolicited happy birthdays.
If I’d stayed with you, I’d probably be a mother by now. We’d have been married in 2021 or 2022. You’d mentioned a 2020 wedding once, and I bristled, realizing you were suggesting marrying me before I reached the legal drinking age. I asked you once how you would feel if I ever ended up pregnant, and you sighed and resignedly said, “I wouldn’t want to do it, but I would.”
To my abject horror, I thought you were referring to marrying me, or raising our fictional child, but in actuality, you meant you’d get a full-time job. I asked how you’d feel if I ever had an abortion, and you said you “Wouldn’t want to know about it.” I didn’t tell you about the Plan B I’d misused after a missed period, and what came after it.
We would’ve had the ceremony at the Episcopal church downtown, and the reception under a large tent, in that private park. The private park, where we broke up, and I told you to never call me again.
You did call after I came home from my study abroad. When I told you I’d met someone, you punched the gas tank of your car and said,
“I was here struggling, and you were just–”
“What?”
“Well, I don’t want to say it.” Your hands waved frantically in front of your face.
“Say it.” My jaw is slack, my heartbeat in the base of my stomach.
“Sleeping around. You were just sleeping around.”
I got home, and he was in the kitchen, suffering over a loaf of sourdough. His hands, sticky with unkneaded dough.
“How’d it go?”
“I found the dress,” I said, and threw my keys onto the counter.
“What!?” He went to hug me, but stopped himself. I was wearing a white silk blouse and light blue jeans. He ran to the kitchen, washed his hands.
His wet fingertips dampened the back of my shirt as he hoisted me up.
“That’s so exciting! You got the dress!”
He asked what it looks like. I told him I couldn’t say. We had dinner and watched TV from our couch. My legs draped over his lap, my hands playing in his hair. His eyes shut, his chin tilted skyward. He murmured, “I can’t wait to marry you.”
It’s so odd to feel chosen after I spent so much time chasing you.
When we went to bed that night, I asked if he ever thinks about alternate realities. He talked about physics for ten minutes, but I’d misworded the question. I let him have his fun. I asked more directly on my second attempt,
“I mean–did you ever think you were going to marry any of your exes?”
He scoffed, “No.”
“I did.”
“Hm.”
“Did you ever tell any of your exes you wanted to marry them?”
He took a deep breath, “I don’t think so?” He told me a high school girlfriend of his was relatively interested in it and would ask him often about their future.
“My ex would always tell me he wanted me to be the mother of his children.”
He laughed and lifted my hand to glance between me and my engagement ring. “Uh Oh.”
“Does that make you like, jealous?”
“No, why would it?” He said as he pulled me onto his chest. His voice resonated against his rib cage. I didn’t have an answer. He asked me if I was feeling ok.
“Yeah, just tired.” I rolled over to my side, and he started snoring soon after.
I guess this is a practice in pondering.
Life propels you forward. He and I started dating when I was 19, and now I’m 25 and we’re less than a year away from being husband and wife.
But I have obsessive compulsive disorder, which is to say I constantly question, for reasons unknown to myself.
I’m a writer, which is to say that after questioning, I let my mind slip through the cracks of imagined circumstance.
Sometimes that questioning brings people back from the past, and leaves me wondering what could’ve changed. What strange domino tipped the others? Could it be extracted from the line? Would it reap the same result?
So, I let it consume my thoughts. I let it clog my search results and fan the flames of my anxiety. I wonder if knowing more about where everyone’s gone will make their abandonment hurt less. It never does.
According to my therapists, it’s an obsessive-compulsive trait called “Retroactive Jealousy.” It’s common in anxiously attached women, who feel envy towards people with whom they have little connection, other than shared friends or romantic partners. I guess what I have is more like retroactive curiosity.
I wonder what happened to my ex’s ex and if she ever left her hometown.
I wonder after my high school best friend, who got married last year.
I wonder about you, sometimes, but not often enough.
Those I’ve known don’t interest me much. It’s always those I’m tangentially related to. Their unknowability, alluring.
It affects my conversations, asking friends about people who I’ve left behind.
It affects my relationships, frustrating partners with questions that make them live in the past.
It affects the way I look at my body in the mirror and how I lead my life.
I’m crawling into a fault line to try to reach the center of it, and when the earth shakes, I act like I don’t notice.
I worry that on my wedding day, I’ll be sucking in my stomach during our vows, and pouting my mouth while we cut the cake, all for an imagined audience watching from Instagram. I watch, and I wonder if there’s anyone looking back.
I don’t miss them, I don’t want them, I’m not envious of his past, but I do wonder. What if she were the one to catch my bouquet? What if I’d exchanged rings with someone different? What if?
And then his calloused hand brushes mine, as he laughs his impossible laugh, and I’m brought back. We’re at dinner with friends. Someone across the table is telling a story. There’s a warm breeze, and the sun slips quickly over the skyline. He pulls me closer, his arm wrapped around my shoulders.
I’m right where I want to be, and as many roads as there are, and just as many realities, I’m glad to be his, indefinitely. I’ll always wonder, but I’ll never know what I’ve lost in transit. Like a shooting star, looking over her shoulder, as she plummets toward earth.
