Got a ring on your finger and freaking out?

What I was feeling just didn’t make sense; the contradictory emotions did not compute. What the hell was going on with me?

By the time the six-month countdown to our wedding began, the giddy and productive “Insert Groom” bride had completely vanished, and I sank into a dark, sad hole. Insomnia haunted me. Late at night I’d roam the apartment, worrying that I’d be a depressed bride. I envisioned myself walking listlessly down the aisle, indifferent to my husband-to-be and assembled guests. In those middle-of-the-night hours, I felt isolated and alone, cut off and unsupported by my family and friends, none of whom seemed to understand what I was feeling. When I tried to explain myself to them, they stared back at me quizzically, unable to fathom why I was upset when I should be so happy.

Worst of all, the emotional roller coaster I was on scared me. “Oh my God,” I thought to myself. “If I’m feeling this upset all the time, does it mean I should call off the wedding?”

Then my mother and I started talking about lasagna, and everything fell apart.

The menu Jason and I had created for our casual rehearsal-dinner picnic beside a pond was supposed to be simple and fun. We thought that lasagna, Kentucky Fried Chicken, salads, beer, wine, and Klondike bars for dessert would be a nice contrast to the fancier sit-down wedding reception the following day.

Planning it, however, became a mother-daughter wrestling match. I was thirty-four years old, but I felt like a teenager again. My emotions were on full blast, as they’d been in high school, and again, I felt like I was on the losing side of a power struggle with my mom. The conversations between us went something like this:

mom: How do you plan on keeping the lasagna warm?

me: It’ll be hot when the caterers deliver it.

mom (one week later): How do you know it will be delivered hot?

me: Because it’s their job.

mom (three weeks later): Why don’t you keep them in the ovens at the club during cocktails?

me: Okay, Mom. Good idea.

mom (a week after that): I don’t think the ovens are big enough. How do you know the ovens are big enough?

me: I’ll ask.

mom (two weeks later): I’m still worried about the lasagna being hot.

me: Oh my God, Mom! Okay, we’ll rent chafing dishes.

mom (the next day): Do you really think chafing dishes will work?

me: Good Lord, Mom, yes! And if they don’t, we’ll have it lukewarm, because we don’t care that much.

mom (two weeks later): You know, lukewarm lasagna isn’t very pleasant.

Each time we spoke on the phone, Mom mentioned the lasagna. No solution I offered allayed her worries. She talked to my dad about it (“I don’t know how Allison’s going to keep the lasagna hot”); to my two brothers (“I’m worried about the lasagna”); and to my four sisters (“Lukewarm lasagna isn’t very nice, don’t you agree?”). Even Cookie, her cleaning lady, got an earful (“Allison’s having lasagna delivered to the rehearsal dinner”), as did anyone else who’d listen. My mother was driving me crazy, driving them crazy, and yet she could not be stopped. Or shut up.

In the eye of the lasagna storm and in a highly emotional state, I couldn’t find my way out. For a good four months, the conversation went around and around like this before I realized that

(a) nothing I said or did would stop her lasagna obsession, and

(b) my mom and I weren’t actually fighting about the temperature of the lasagna.

What were we fighting about? I didn’t quite know yet — although I had an inkling that we were clashing about the changing nature of our relationship, as Jason and I prepared to marry. What I did know was that it was my job to figure out what was going on. Mom couldn’t help; she was too busy worrying about the lasagna.

I smartened up and stepped out of the fight, even going so far as to hold the telephone away from my ear when the word “lasagna” crossed her lips. Instead of doing backflips for my mother, I became more of an amused spectator, keeping her craziness and her grievances at arm’s length.

I decided to refocus my mental energy on the only person I had any control over: me. I knew that if I could make meaning of my sadness, anxiety, and fear, I’d be able to grow from what I was feeling, rather than just be battered by it. So I began to try to figure out what was going on with me and to learn from this crazy emotional world I had entered as a bride-to-be. Cold lasagna be damned.

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