Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm | a full circle of us (142)

By Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

He held my hands just at the door, in my laced red dress, the photographer told him to kiss me- my world was a full circle of us. The six hundred plus strangers cramped into the four wall Chinese restaurant mostly gone. Our credit card is smashed I had wondered? My organza pure white rental hopefully not too soiled, the number of ties and cummerbunds numbered? My local hairdresser would like her hair pins back…

I was thin, a pretty thin that times two would fit into one of my dress today. I liked my wedding to the point of elopement, the point of joining a monastery, to thoughts of running away with the young handsome local GP (I believe his mother was the protective receptionist).

I hate people and they were like ants at my wedding, less than a handful were my friends. I had one of those smiles which emulated a true politician. When you are in your twenties your tolerance for people is huge, as the years pass on and your spine shrinks to a brittle unbendable state of hard- soft in the most undesired of places! But the past is accepted, I now choose whom to care for without reserve, what is left is ornamental.

Did someone wise say – when you close your eyes, you’re totally alone… or the like.

2018