A letter written by a bride to herself the night before her wedding, filed in a drawer, and re-read twice - once at the first wedding anniversary, once two years later. The re-readings produced the editorial decision to share. Published anonymously, with the writer’s permission. The companion pieces - letters on staying and on leaving - are the letters this one was eventually a prelude to.
Dear me,
Tomorrow morning, by the time I open this letter, I will be married. I am writing tonight because I want to remember what I was thinking on the eve, before the actual event obscures the memory.
I am not nervous about him. I want to say that first. I am nervous about the institution. About what marriage will change about who I am and what I will be expected to be. I am nervous about the very small set of decisions I will be allowed to make for myself in the next year, and the very large set of decisions that will be made by other people on my behalf, in the gentle language of ‘the family’ and ‘the elders’. I am nervous that I will not notice the narrowing until it has happened.
I am twenty-six. He is twenty-nine. We have been engaged for eleven months. The eleven months have, in retrospect, been the easiest of the last two years - the wedding is being planned, the families have things to discuss, my opinions are being asked for in a way they will not be asked for after tomorrow.
I want to write what I want to remember. So:
I want to remember that I have, tonight, a particular voice in my head that I have built over twenty-six years and that I like. The voice is quiet. The voice is funny in a way the family does not always notice. The voice has opinions about books and music and the way people are unkind. I want to remember that the voice is mine. If, in five years, the voice is quieter, or different, or has been overwritten by the small accumulations of being a married person - I want this letter to remind me that the voice existed and that it was worth keeping.
I want to remember that I have agency over my own body in a way that the institution we are entering does not by default respect. I am not sure how to say this on the eve. I will say it more clumsily than I want to. I have the right to say what is welcome and what is not. I have the right to be the only person who decides whether or not we have children, and when. I have the right to say no to my mother-in-law about the kitchen, to my father-in-law about the schedule, to my husband about anything. I do not yet know how to use these rights. I am writing them down so that I remember they exist.
I want to remember that my parents love me but also have invested in this wedding. They are not, on this point, entirely neutral. The version of the marriage they will want me to report, in the months ahead, is the version that confirms their investment was justified. I do not want to report falsely. I do not want to report cruelly. I want to find a way to be honest with them about what is hard and what is good, and I want to remember that the difficulty of doing so is a structural feature of where they are sitting, not a problem with our relationship.
I want to remember that the wedding tomorrow is a single day. It is not the marriage. The marriage is what happens in the five thousand mornings after. I want to remember that the five thousand mornings are the thing, and the wedding day is a particular afternoon that will be photographed and stored.
I want to remember that if, in three years or seven or fifteen, I find that the marriage is not what I want it to be, I have the right to say so. I have the right to ask for it to change. I have the right, if asking does not work, to leave. The right to leave is not a betrayal of the marriage; it is what makes the marriage a free institution. The right to leave is what makes the choice to stay actually a choice.
I want to remember, finally, that I am not afraid tonight. I am alert. The alertness is not anxiety; it is the alertness of a person who is about to step into a new room and wants to remember what the previous room looked like.
I will read this letter once a year, on the anniversary, in the morning, before he wakes up. If, in any of those readings, I cannot recognise the voice that wrote it, I will give myself one full Saturday to consider why.
I love you. Good night.
- Me, on the eve.
(The writer re-read the letter at the first anniversary and reports the voice was intact. At the third anniversary, the writer reports the voice was quieter but still recognisable, and chose to take a full Saturday to consider why. The companion piece on sleeping in separate rooms contains an account, edited, of what that Saturday produced.)
The voice you have on the eve of a marriage is the voice the marriage will spend the rest of its life either preserving or slowly editing. Notice it. Write it down. Re-read it.