Diary of a Cork bride: 'Now I'm in the aftermath'

Maybe it’s because I’m not working. I don’t have a specific routine to my day, and the planning that took up the greatest part of the past two years is no longer required.

The wedding day came and went, and now I’m in the aftermath.

It’s not that it’s necessarily a bad place to be, yet I feel a little listless.

I’m a new bride, so I’m supposed to be in this fun little bubble, aren’t I? Instead, I’m stuck in a bit of a malaise, watching endless episodes of Desperate Housewives.

My husband thinks that’s the problem. That I’m watching these characters go through divorces, infidelity and amnesia, so how am I supposed to be happy myself?

The fact is though, the opposite is true. I’m drawn to this show because I’m feeling overwhelmed and deflated at a time when everyone around me seems to be moving along nicely, having babies, and buying houses.

I couldn’t have seen this happening a number of months ago. I thought when you got married, you would feel this huge surge of excitement and joy. Instead, I’m feeling sort of confused.

I love my husband – that has never been a question. But I had this purpose for the past 23 months of my life, a purpose which, in the blink of an eye, has disappeared.

Our wedding day – the 28th of March – loomed before us for such a long time, far off on the horizon. Everything in my life was affected by it.

I obsessed endlessly over my skin, going for numerous treatments and drinking endless cups of green tea, wanting it to be perfect on the day.

We saved money like it was going out of fashion. Date nights became more infrequent because we had this massive day to prepare, and things that had once seemed irrelevant garnered huge importance.

I started planning my hen party 10 months before it actually took place, until I eventually took the hint to step back and let my bridal party take care of it instead.

We made seating charts and lists and budgets, and ‘The Wedding’ took on an identity all of its own. This was no longer just a day, this was an institution.

Of course, I did have some reprieve from the planning. I took up acting, and completed a counselling course. On days when the planning became too much, when I couldn’t think of anything other than ‘The Biggest Day of My Life’, I had somewhere else to go, in which I could retreat.

Yet now that the day is over, and that all we have left are the memories and the photographs, I feel a little at a loss.

My husband, sensing my need to have something to look forward to, booked a trip to Brussels as a gift for my 33rd birthday.

Is this where I expected to be at 33? I know, I get it – you’re not supposed to say these things. People are supposed to revel in the joy of these big life events, and if you don’t, it’s almost seen as if you failed.

We are not allowed to talk about the things that others don’t feel comfortable with us talking about.

I’m not saying it’s all bad, or that I’m unhappy. I still get a thrill every morning when I put on my two rings, and I still feel a little giddy when I refer to “my husband”, especially to random strangers, who don’t bat an eyelid at this revelation.

I got married – me. The person who essentially had a ‘failure to commit’ stamp placed on her forehead for the better part of her life, has settled down. I like that I am now someone’s wife and that somebody chose me to be the person to rely on, to grow old with. All of that is true, and yet, so are the other realities that run alongside it.

The other (perhaps slightly more ugly) truth is that I feel lost. I don’t have this huge sense of accomplishment I thought I would feel by now. In fact, I feel a little like a kid playing dress up.

I am reminded of a conversation with a family member years ago about parenthood. She said she felt like she didn’t know what she was doing, that she felt like she was just pretending. I told her that everyone feels that way, that we’re all playing make-believe.

So then, I ask you, why don’t we stop? Can we just it that this life isn’t something we can wrap up in a neat little bow, and that it’s OK if things don’t feel picture-perfect?

There is a reason Disney movies and rom-coms are so popular, it’s because they’re not real.

Real life is messy and complex and sometimes doesn’t work out the way we thought it would. And photographs are wonderful to look at because they capture a moment, a brief point in time.

Some people may look at me with scepticism for not being in a state of wedded bliss, but the reality is I’m not the only one to feel like this, and sometimes it’s OK to it that.

that you can be all things. You can be loved up and committed and content, but you can also feel a little confused.

You don’t need to fit your identity into a perfect little box; it’s OK to be uncertain.

Maybe your love story won’t look as pretty as you had imagined, because maybe life doesn’t work like that. But loving someone means just that, taking the bad with the good and recognising that true beauty can be borne out of chaos.