I say, “Yes,” as I stand there in tears. He puts the ring on my finger and we kiss like it’s the first time we ever have, like it’s our last night on earth.
I get engaged on October 23, 2015—the very last day of my thirties. I wake up on my fortieth birthday, engaged to the love of my life and unable to believe that I have not only met the man of my dreams, but that I get to spend the rest of my life with him—starting very soon.
As we start to figure out the details, Pat has an idea for how we might do our wedding that he thinks might make the night even more special than just resulting in a marriage anniversary every four years.
“What would you say about getting married,” Pat asks, “while performing onstage?”
Nothing has ever sounded so brilliant, honestly. I love nothing more than joining Pat when he performs, and this seems like the ultimate way to tie the knot.
“Are you kidding me?” I respond. “Yes!”
Pat tells me how the wedding will work. Because his stage show has been accepted into the New York Comedy Festival, he’s headlining Gotham Comedy Club on November 11, so we can turn it into the festival’s very first wedding-slash-comedy show. Awesome.
But the date is coming up really, really soon, and it’s not long before we are both running overheated as we scramble to meet the fast-approaching event. It feels like a 24-style countdown to bring all the pieces together: the minister (check), the performers (check), the vows (check), the rings (check).
I find myself slowly having a meltdown.
“You need to take care of yourself, Mandy,” Pat says as I’m trying to figure out the perfect dress, the perfect hair, and the perfect everything. “We don’t have to get married at the show if it’s too stressful. But you have to go to a meeting, see your therapist, something. Because we can’t do this at the expense of your personal well-being.”
And so, as he runs around the city making last-minute preparations, I sit in a small dingy room with other people who are facing the same demons that I am.
Only today is my wedding day, and I have never felt so grateful.
“Hi, my name is Mandy, and I’m an alcoholic.”
Later that night, onstage, surrounded by three hundred friends and fans in a packed comedy club, we recite vows we have written that day.
Pat takes my hands and speaks to my heart.
“You know, Mandy, when we met, everything changed for me,” Pat says. “I really didn’t know somebody like you existed, and if I had known, I wouldn’t have given up on all that shit before.”
A wave of laughter ripples through the audience, and tears well up in my eyes.
“You’re unlike anybody I’ve ever met,” he says. “It’s been the best year of my life. I promise to honor that by never forgetting how bad life was when I didn’t know you.”
Then he looks in my eyes, pauses, and says, “And I’m never going to put you in a home.”
The audience bursts into laughter—at both the irreverence and the surprise of the line—but I know how profound what he says really is. I squeeze his hand.
It is a moment only we understand.
Later that night, when it is just the two of us alone in a romantic hotel suite with roses strewn everywhere, Pat surprises me by pulling out a copy of the letter that I wrote to my “future self,” the one I showed him months earlier.
Nervously, I open the seal.
I read it aloud for us both.
“Dear Mandy, what a beautiful experience these past few years have been,” I say, fully crying now. “You know who you are. You have a heart filled with love—for yourself and others. And you only partner with a man who has earned the right to be with you.”
At that last part, Pat reaches out and caresses the ruby on my ring.
“That’s you,” I say.
“That’s me.”
IF YOU LOOK deep inside every woman, you will find a black box that records the wreckage of her past relationships.
It’s an intimidating excavation, to be sure. Digging through all the dust and debris until you finally find it buried beneath the surface with the ominous seal on the outside reading DO NOT OPEN.
I know better now than to blithely obey.
I am not and will not be afraid to look and to listen and to learn. I want to go there. I need to find the bigger picture, and in the process, myself. While I relive the most terrifying moments recorded, the most disturbing memories, the darkest nights, I can’t help but shudder.
But I’m no longer afraid of the fear. I’m no longer paralyzed by humiliation or the notion of what others might think of me. Fear will not kill you. Humiliation holds no real power. But being too afraid to look and listen just might.
At first, the voices sound haunting. Taunting even. But I don’t stop. I can’t stop. I refuse to. I will go deeper until I find out what I am really made of and where I have been all this time.
Goddammit I just can’t take it!
This never happened, and if you tell anyone different, I’ll deny it.
I’m disappointed in you, Mandy.
You’re not smart, you’re not funny, you’re not a good writer, and you’re not pretty.
Do you want me to fuck the shit out of you?
If I were you, I would have put a gun in my mouth a long time ago.
Please don’t say I dated Mandy Stadtmiller.
I’d suggest you stay away from marriage going forward?
You took a little nap. I had to wake you up.
That was not sex. That was rape.
I don’t want
