Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy wore a double-breasted, strawberry pink and navy trim collared Chanel wool suit on November 22, 1963, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Accompanying the suit was a trademark pillbox hat in matching pink. The suit has become an emblem for her husband's assassination and one of the iconic items of fashion of the 1960s. It has been variously described as "a famous pink suit which will forever be embedded in America's historical conscience", as "one of those indelible images Americans had stored: Jackie in the blood-stained pink Chanel suit", as "the most legendary garment in American history", and as "emblematic of the ending of innocence". Jacqueline Kennedy was a fashion icon, and this outfit is arguably the most referenced and revisited of all of her items of clothing and her trademark.
After President Kennedy was assassinated, Jacqueline Kennedy insisted on wearing the suit, stained with his blood, during the swearing-in of Lyndon B. Johnson and for the flight back to Washington, D.C.with the President’s body.
(I may or may not of stolen the above from wikipedia.)
I had never heard this story... until a friend referenced this blood stained dress to me. I didn't know what he was talking about, but I can connivence just about anyone I know what I am talking about... Later that evening I asked my roommate Katelynd what he had meant about "JackieO and the blood stained dress." She told me how Jackie wore the dress around that day and how it had been stained and still she didn't jump to take it off.
Until yesterday I was still wearing my NYE dress... I went out and brought the new year in with a bang. On the first of the year I laid in bed alllll day and then in the evening had over good friends for the Prosperous Meal. Then back into bed until the next afternoon when my friend came over and found me still in my dress. I knew I was in a funk but I thought nothing of it at the time. As the day went on I finally changed but I couldn't shake the feeling that someone or something had died.
I realize now that I didn't want to take that dress off because it was admitting that 2011 was really over. That my year of struggle, heartbreak and betrayal was over... which should be (and is) a wonderful wonderful thing... and some how its not. Even now I am crying my eyes out. My heart aches with pain and at the same time with a desperation for a year that was "transitional". The ending of the year means the end of my transition, no longer am I in the middle of the good fight, or pushing through the worst of it. I am on the other side. Don't get me wrong all of efforts have been to get to this side of it all but in reality I have become very comfortable.
I know what its like to hurt, to pick myself up and push through a really shitty day. I know what its like to love someone who doesn't love you and truly feel that rejection. I know what its like to cry until my pillow is a sponge but being okay is uncharted territory. Functioning outside of a disaster area is something I know very little about... and I realize that everyday is still a struggle in one way or another but I also know that I am actually out of the muck.
Then there is this interview with Michelle Williams that both Chelsey and Katelynd have told me about... Michelle refers to the book The Year of Magical Thinking and says,
"In a strange way I miss that year because all of those possibilities that existed then are gone it didn't seem unlikely to me that he could walk through a door or appear behind a bush. It was a year of very magical thinking and in some ways I am sad to be moving further and further away from it."
"When you have truly lost everything, then at least you can become rich in loss."
"The greatest tragedy is to have the experience and miss the meaning."
And then I weep again when she says she has found meaning around the situation but no actually in it. I feel the same way. I hope to understand someday but I would never wish my experience on anyone.
So now the dress is off but the glitter is still in my hair...
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