The Difference Between Getting and Needing

t h i r t y - f o u r

i was about to let go
'till i knew you e x i s t e d . . .

〰️〰️〰️

The first time I typed the word "annulment" into Google was on my computer at work. Just out of sheer curiosity, I wanted to see what would pop up.

What is an annulment and how to get one? Annulment vs. Divorce: What's the Difference? How long does an annulment take? Need a quick, easy, somewhat painless fix to something that should have never happened?

I should have been tracking orders for new samples that Donatella requested. Instead, I was trying to figure out if Gus and I really could "erase" our marriage and act like it never happened.

It had been one day – not even twenty-four hours – of living with him again and I was already back to my old ways. Then again, I never really would have thought that at just twenty-three years old, I would be having this kind of dilemma. The kind of dilemma that means wanting an annulment after drunkenly eloping with Gus on the night of my sister's wedding.

Surprisingly enough, the annulment idea came from Nadia. After I spent the entirety of our forty-five-minute lunch break telling her about Hawaii in the most condensed version I could manage, she had a lot of questions, a lot of thoughts, and a lot of advice. I wouldn't have expected anything less from her.

She brought it up as a mere suggestion. If we really couldn't come to terms with the whole marriage thing, or if we just couldn't make it work, we could erase it. Simple enough.

Other than that, she was pretty happy that I made it out of the wedding alive, in one piece, and as a new woman. She almost cried too, honestly. Happy tears, of course, because half of the time she was laughing at the irony of this whole goddamn situation. She tried her hardest to get me to show her the video I got from Keone but to no avail; I still had yet to watch it myself. Instead, I let her inspect the plastic wedding band I got as a souvenir from the one night in my life that I didn't remember but definitely should.

When we got back to our cubicle was when my research on annulments began. I didn't know what it meant exactly, and the part of me that thought us eloping was the stupidest thing we could have done wanted to consider all of our options.

Soon enough, I found myself with twelve tabs open in my browser, each containing a different article about annulments or divorce. I was jumping headfirst down a rabbit hole that I didn't know I ever wanted to be in. One I never thought existed or considered before.

I had a headache after two and a half articles. I closed out the rest of the tabs without even bothering to bookmark them and decided to save my research for another day.

My work week came to an end not much longer after that, which meant it was Friday night. My first one as a wife, one week since the incident, and while there were a dozen exciting things I could have been doing, I was spending it grocery shopping.

Gus was grabbing drinks with guys from his work, so I got myself in an Uber after I left the office and went straight to the brand new Target they just built in my neighborhood. What should have been an easy, uncomplicated thirty-minute trip turned into frustration and precious time wasted. My favorite coffee creamer and preferred toothpaste were out of stock, and that goddamn dollar section with too many knickknacks caught my eye for longer than I'd like to admit.

By the time I got home, after my third Uber ride of the day from not wanting to bear the single-digit windchill that swept the entire city, I had three bags full of things I didn't need. A pretty normal trip to Target for me, all in all.