Yes!
I said yes once. A long, long time ago. Precisely, it was thirty years ago! As a child?!, people gasp.
It was also in April, not after Easter, as the Royals, but just before, on Easter's eve. My wedding dress, another thing in common, also had lace like Kate's, but not the "V" neck. The church was also packed, but could not afford around 2,000.
As a woman, I am more beautiful than Catherine. I don't take her as a personal icon any way, but just as a historical figure.
I was younger - same age as Diana. I did not cry before the TV cameras, nor died - yet - in a car crash. But getting a divorce was also as dramatic.
Several years after I have overcome divorce, I was helping two old ladies in the bank I worked when one of them told me, Do not rush to get married. You look like a movie star.
What a compliment! I retorted, I have already gotten married. She immediately shook her head in disapproval, the reason for that I failed to figure out. But now it is clear: if I got married and was working... that was not a good marriage!
The other day, a young lady behind a counter in a shopping center told me, You'll soon get married. To a rich man.
I doubted, I don't thing that is going to happen.
She insisted, Look at yourself in the mirror! Of course you will. And sooner than you can imagine.
Several years after leaving the bank, I met in... the church. Roughly ten years ago. Parishioners thought I was then 25... I fell deeply in love. I would do anything for him. Even marry him, even though I would only do that if he really found that fundamental.
I don't think I will love another man as I loved him. Antonio.
I could not forget him altogether. And am now more averse to marriage than before.
I miss the cooking. Yes! I did so much cooking for him. It was a great pleasure, and was not trying to impress him. It was always a gift I would give him every week.
The dark side, he was immature and too concerned about others - family, the congregation, conventions, the hell and heaven. He had a very hard time just trying to convince himself "I was a mistake".
Why I don't talk about my husband? Good point.
My husband soon changed from a prince into a ... His mother was crazy and fancied making scandals at others' doors. Made a remarkable one at mine; another at the entrance of my older daughter's best friend flat. She is the incarnation of evil to me till today. And if any man still has a living mother, do not even consider proposing to me. If it is true I do not want to have a husband, even less do I want to have a mother-in-law.
I could have been a movie star that eventually married a prince, just like Grace Kelly. Even though I had ruled that out, I am not an ordinary woman. Far from that, I am so unique that I do not think there is a man that can see me as I am.
Antonio could not either.
So in the end, it was inevitable that we went apart. Despite, loving Antonio was a turning-point. Far more important than marrying him. Or marrying a royal prince.
Diana's life tells me that we can have everything one day and, regardless, can wake up one morning without anything. Antonio's fate tells me the same.
Kate's trajectory so far tells me we can suddenly become a huge success, but will never be sure whether that is for better or for worse. Can it be for better and for worse at the same time?
Love does not need a royal bed. Not even a bed at all. Love needs welcome to chance.
I had everything a bride can wish for. The big car. A handsome groom that made other girls envious. But that is the view from the outside world, not the inside.
Like those two old ladies at the bank, most people think a woman that has already been married is as bad as a used car whose previous owners you do not know - and do not want to have any connections with. It is high time society realized women are not akin to cars. That alone would make me happier.
A woman does not waste her pieces and parties as she kisses or makes sex. But she can make a waste of her own life if she bends to the 'car reasoning' mediocrity.
No. In thirty years, no other weddings. A great love, as I told you. Antonio. But I have firmly married to the ideal of keeping plenty of room to chance. And it has worked pretty well so far.
