I stood in the middle of a marble-floored ballroom in downtown Chicago, clutching a clipboard that felt heavier than a lead weight. My stepmother, Diane, was sweeping across the room with a silk scarf trailing behind her, pointing at chandeliers and demanding more lilies. She had spent the last four months turning what should have been a small, intimate gathering into a gala that felt like it belonged in a bridal magazine. I didn\u2019t even recognize the person in the mirror anymore, mostly because Diane had already picked out a dress that cost more than my first car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The air in the venue was cold, smelling of expensive floor wax and old money, and I felt like a stranger in my own life. Every time I tried to suggest a simple taco truck or a playlist of our favorite indie songs, Diane would give me that look\u2014the one that suggested I was a toddler trying to finger-paint on a masterpiece. She had taken over the guest list, the seating chart, and even the flavor of the cake, which was apparently going to be \u201cchampagne-infused lavender.\u201d I didn\u2019t even like lavender; it made me sneeze.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I stood in the middle of a marble-floored ballroom in downtown Chicago, clutching a clipboard that felt heavier than a lead weight. My stepmother, Diane, was sweeping… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":146,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26549,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26547\/revisions\/26549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}