Yes, another one of those posts where I'm supposed to be working on my chapter, but I'm blogging instead. Yes, another one of those posts that's about him.
One of the reasons I am super in love and super excited about this guy is that I feel absolutely, positively cherished by him. Not a day goes by that he doesn't tell me he loves me. Not a day goes by that he doesn't tell me I'm beautiful. He loves my hair: straight, wavy, curly, with braids on the side, afroed out, pinned up. He's always grateful when I make dinner and he washes the dishes afterward. He tells me all the time how lucky he is to have me. He tells me all the time how happy I make him. He tells me that I'm perfect for him. He's written songs for me. Poetry for me. He's affectionate. His gestures are simple and sweet. A kiss on the hand, on the forehead. Sunflowers just because. He is expressive. He is creative. He is honest and forthright and consistent. He whispers, "I'm going to take care of you and keep you safe and warm." Stroking my cheek, he says, "I just keep falling more and more in love with you." With his fingers intertwined with mine, "I love to see you smile." This is not fanciful. This is real. This is flesh and blood.
I've always wanted this kind of love. It's a love that is sure, unafraid, unconditional. It's a love that isn't going anywhere. It's a love that makes itself known, no guessing, no wondering. It's honest and bare. No pretense. No need to maintain an image to hide insecurities. It's all in. It's as if I went out, frantically searching for something, and then, exhausted by my own efforts, realizing they were futile, I went back home. And that's when I found it. As if it had always been there, waiting for me.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Sunday, October 26, 2014
The Evolution of a Wanna-Be Homemaker, Recipe List Addendum
Here's a slight continuation of this post a little earlier today. I wanted to think about and make a list of some of the things I've made for my guy that have gone over well. Some have become more or less regulars or favorites. Some of them are also my go-to's if I have people over for dinner.
Entrees (Word nerd side note: although we borrowed this word from the French and use it to mean the main meal, or main part of the meal, in France, it's actually what we would refer to as an appetizer or starter course.)
1. Chicken florentine over bowtie pasta
2. Chicken poppyseed casserole
3. Eggplant parmesan
4. Spinach/bacon/tomato quiche
5. Zucchini/squash quiche
6. Italian sausage/spinach quiche
7. Broccoli/cheddar quiche
8. Pasta carbonara
9. Red wine pot roast
10. Fajitas
11. Quesadillas
12. Yellow curry
13. Stir fry
14. Meatball stroganoff
15. Baked dijon salmon
16. Roast pork tenderloin
17. Chili
Sides
1. Roasted parmesan green beans
2. Garlic mashed potatoes
3. Stuffed tomatoes
4. Roasted rosemary red potatoes
5. Roasted asparagus
6. Spinach/goat cheese/cranberry/walnut salad
7. Spinach/pork tenderloin/pear/cranberry salad
8. Leftover mashed potato puffs
9. Cheddar cornbread muffins
10. Glazed carrots
11. Sauteed zucchini/squash
(Note to self: I still haven't made squash casserole or corn pudding for him...that should happen soon.)
Desserts
1. Pineapple cherry cobbler
2. Pound cake
3. Homemade vanilla ice cream
4. Pumpkin spice muffins
5. Zucchini bread
(I still need to bake some banana bread. It's been a while.)
When I look back on these culinary achievements, I'm kind of proud of myself. I mean, considering that I used to not know how to make anything. I still haven't made a homemade pizza for him or these little mozzarella-stuffed mini-meatloaves I made once upon a time...
Entrees (Word nerd side note: although we borrowed this word from the French and use it to mean the main meal, or main part of the meal, in France, it's actually what we would refer to as an appetizer or starter course.)
1. Chicken florentine over bowtie pasta
2. Chicken poppyseed casserole
3. Eggplant parmesan
4. Spinach/bacon/tomato quiche
5. Zucchini/squash quiche
6. Italian sausage/spinach quiche
7. Broccoli/cheddar quiche
8. Pasta carbonara
9. Red wine pot roast
10. Fajitas
11. Quesadillas
12. Yellow curry
13. Stir fry
14. Meatball stroganoff
15. Baked dijon salmon
16. Roast pork tenderloin
17. Chili
Sides
1. Roasted parmesan green beans
2. Garlic mashed potatoes
3. Stuffed tomatoes
4. Roasted rosemary red potatoes
5. Roasted asparagus
6. Spinach/goat cheese/cranberry/walnut salad
7. Spinach/pork tenderloin/pear/cranberry salad
8. Leftover mashed potato puffs
9. Cheddar cornbread muffins
10. Glazed carrots
11. Sauteed zucchini/squash
(Note to self: I still haven't made squash casserole or corn pudding for him...that should happen soon.)
Desserts
1. Pineapple cherry cobbler
2. Pound cake
3. Homemade vanilla ice cream
4. Pumpkin spice muffins
5. Zucchini bread
(I still need to bake some banana bread. It's been a while.)
When I look back on these culinary achievements, I'm kind of proud of myself. I mean, considering that I used to not know how to make anything. I still haven't made a homemade pizza for him or these little mozzarella-stuffed mini-meatloaves I made once upon a time...
The Evolution of a Wanna-Be Homemaker
If you would have told my high school/undergrad self that I would ever one day make Italian sausage and spinach quiches and bake zucchini bread (with cranberries) for some dude, I would have laughed at you.
Like, if he's a grown man, he can make his own food. Ugh.
I used to get slightly annoyed with my mom when she would act all accommodating with my dad regarding food. "Honey, are you hungry? Honey, do you want me to fix you x? I can make you a y. Are you sure you don't want z?" Woman, if the man really wanted something, he would get it. And he's an able-bodied human who doesn't need you to be hovering over him like he's a helpless baby bird. Please.
I ask myself, how did I go from that, totally turned off by the very idea of cooking for an able-bodied grown man, and not knowing how to make squat even if I wanted to, to salivating and having housewife fantasies in Williams-Sonoma?
I guess it started when I got my own place. I finally graduated, finally had a real job, finally had my own place, finally had bills to pay, etc. None of this eating out every night. That junk gets expensive. So I guess, it started out of financial expediency. And from getting a Crock Pot for Christmas. I started experimenting, and, Imma be for real, not all the experiments were good.
When my experiments started turning out a little better, I would have people over for dinner here and there. Nothing grand. The years went by and I slowly went accumulating casserole recipes and would eat whatever casserole for days since it was just little old me.
Stuff got real, though, when I had my little garden a couple of summers ago. I had mad veggies and I had to do something with those guys. Zucchini and squash and tomatoes. This time is known as the Era of the Quiche. In addition to quiche, I cooked casseroles and pizzas and soups and roasted and sauteed and stuffed and did anything you can do to vegetables. Oh, and I perfected the art of zucchini bread. I began to like cooking and baking for myself and other people. Sometimes I would bake bread and muffins or whatever to give away to people to help me beat the blues.
Ever since my special guy made his appearance, though, I've been 10 times worse than my mom. I'm always up in that poor guy's face trying to get him to eat stuff. He likes everything I make, though. He's always like, "Oh, this is wonderful." And I get a big fat toothy goofy smile across my face that won't go away.
I don't make stuff for my special guy because he expects me to. I don't do it because I feel obligated to. I don't do it because he's not an able-bodied grown man who can make his own food. (Although, if left to his own devices, "making his own food" amounts to sticking a Lean Cuisine in the microwave or taking a trip to Wendy's.) I do it because it's one of the ways I say "I love you."
Now, here I am, anticipating the return of my sweet fiancé (And, oh, I could nauseate you with the terms of endearment we have for each other. "Sweet fiancé" is nothing. But I'll spare you.) tonight with his favorite kind of quiche and a loaf of zucchini bread. Because I love him.
Like, if he's a grown man, he can make his own food. Ugh.
I used to get slightly annoyed with my mom when she would act all accommodating with my dad regarding food. "Honey, are you hungry? Honey, do you want me to fix you x? I can make you a y. Are you sure you don't want z?" Woman, if the man really wanted something, he would get it. And he's an able-bodied human who doesn't need you to be hovering over him like he's a helpless baby bird. Please.
I ask myself, how did I go from that, totally turned off by the very idea of cooking for an able-bodied grown man, and not knowing how to make squat even if I wanted to, to salivating and having housewife fantasies in Williams-Sonoma?
I guess it started when I got my own place. I finally graduated, finally had a real job, finally had my own place, finally had bills to pay, etc. None of this eating out every night. That junk gets expensive. So I guess, it started out of financial expediency. And from getting a Crock Pot for Christmas. I started experimenting, and, Imma be for real, not all the experiments were good.
When my experiments started turning out a little better, I would have people over for dinner here and there. Nothing grand. The years went by and I slowly went accumulating casserole recipes and would eat whatever casserole for days since it was just little old me.
Stuff got real, though, when I had my little garden a couple of summers ago. I had mad veggies and I had to do something with those guys. Zucchini and squash and tomatoes. This time is known as the Era of the Quiche. In addition to quiche, I cooked casseroles and pizzas and soups and roasted and sauteed and stuffed and did anything you can do to vegetables. Oh, and I perfected the art of zucchini bread. I began to like cooking and baking for myself and other people. Sometimes I would bake bread and muffins or whatever to give away to people to help me beat the blues.
Ever since my special guy made his appearance, though, I've been 10 times worse than my mom. I'm always up in that poor guy's face trying to get him to eat stuff. He likes everything I make, though. He's always like, "Oh, this is wonderful." And I get a big fat toothy goofy smile across my face that won't go away.
I don't make stuff for my special guy because he expects me to. I don't do it because I feel obligated to. I don't do it because he's not an able-bodied grown man who can make his own food. (Although, if left to his own devices, "making his own food" amounts to sticking a Lean Cuisine in the microwave or taking a trip to Wendy's.) I do it because it's one of the ways I say "I love you."
Now, here I am, anticipating the return of my sweet fiancé (And, oh, I could nauseate you with the terms of endearment we have for each other. "Sweet fiancé" is nothing. But I'll spare you.) tonight with his favorite kind of quiche and a loaf of zucchini bread. Because I love him.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Gone Guy
So...my guy left today to present at a conference in Chicago and will be there for the rest of the weekend.
Sad face.
I guess that means I have no excuse for not being extra productive, right?
What I really want to do is get a greasy Popeye's chicken dinner combo and catch up on Scandal. I don't watch Scandal with him because the one-and-a-half times we tried to watch it together, he was like, "This is ridiculous." And you know what? I ain't even mad at him. Because it is. It totally is.
The show we do watch together is Chopped. When the host is going over the rules as he always does at the beginning of the show, fiancé always says this with him: "...also available to you, our pantry and fridge." I laugh every single time. I have a crush on one of the judges, Scott Conant. It's not that he's so overwhelmingly handsome (although he is, in a slightly rugged way), it's that he has this swagger that's super attractive. And he has dark hair but red facial hair. Just like my fiancé.
I think our little girl has the possibility of having red hair, but he doesn't believe me. He's like, "Two dark-haired people are unlikely to have a red-haired child." But see, I'm trying to tell him that even though neither of us actually has red hair, we both have red-hair potential. Like, the gene exists in us. Him, with the red facial hair, and me with the oh-so-slightly reddish tint of the hair on my head. I'm not talking about straight up fire-engine Irish red. I'm talking about coppery brownish-red. Like this little girl's hair. He won't believe me. I'm telling him that if he doesn't believe it, it will be even less likely to happen. He has to believe it.
Aaargh! I'm not getting anything done! I have to get something done so that when he gets back I will be able to honestly say that I got stuff done. That I was industrious while he was away. Not that I devolved into a greasy food-eating, trashy show-watching leech. I want him to come back to a new me, a me who has transformed into a noble, hard-working, confident scholar. Who has completed a chapter draft so profound that it would move my entire committee to tears. A draft so inviolate that my major professor would have no choice other than to quote Marc Antony's elegy of Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to describe my academic prowess.
Double click on "Chapter 2 A Mercy." Look at it for a few minutes. Type out a few words. Feel like they're the most inane thoughts ever conceived of. Stare at it a little more. Try to scrape together a few more brain cells to squeeze out maybe two or three more words. Lather, rinse, repeat. Meanwhile, my guy, if he were here, would be sitting inches away from me, ensconced in a linguistically inspired academic force field, impenetrable by every iota of distraction. He's a machine. An academic work horse. Focused as laser light.
I'm standing on the tracks, waiting for an inspiration train to hit me. In the meantime, I will eke out 3 words an hour as I fight the urge to hit up Popeye's and drown my uninspired dissertation-writing existence in grease and the lives of fictional Washington fixers as I miss my bespectacled, freckled, dimpled, wonderful, hard-working, conference-presenting guy.
Sad face.
I guess that means I have no excuse for not being extra productive, right?
What I really want to do is get a greasy Popeye's chicken dinner combo and catch up on Scandal. I don't watch Scandal with him because the one-and-a-half times we tried to watch it together, he was like, "This is ridiculous." And you know what? I ain't even mad at him. Because it is. It totally is.
The show we do watch together is Chopped. When the host is going over the rules as he always does at the beginning of the show, fiancé always says this with him: "...also available to you, our pantry and fridge." I laugh every single time. I have a crush on one of the judges, Scott Conant. It's not that he's so overwhelmingly handsome (although he is, in a slightly rugged way), it's that he has this swagger that's super attractive. And he has dark hair but red facial hair. Just like my fiancé.
I think our little girl has the possibility of having red hair, but he doesn't believe me. He's like, "Two dark-haired people are unlikely to have a red-haired child." But see, I'm trying to tell him that even though neither of us actually has red hair, we both have red-hair potential. Like, the gene exists in us. Him, with the red facial hair, and me with the oh-so-slightly reddish tint of the hair on my head. I'm not talking about straight up fire-engine Irish red. I'm talking about coppery brownish-red. Like this little girl's hair. He won't believe me. I'm telling him that if he doesn't believe it, it will be even less likely to happen. He has to believe it.
Aaargh! I'm not getting anything done! I have to get something done so that when he gets back I will be able to honestly say that I got stuff done. That I was industrious while he was away. Not that I devolved into a greasy food-eating, trashy show-watching leech. I want him to come back to a new me, a me who has transformed into a noble, hard-working, confident scholar. Who has completed a chapter draft so profound that it would move my entire committee to tears. A draft so inviolate that my major professor would have no choice other than to quote Marc Antony's elegy of Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to describe my academic prowess.
Double click on "Chapter 2 A Mercy." Look at it for a few minutes. Type out a few words. Feel like they're the most inane thoughts ever conceived of. Stare at it a little more. Try to scrape together a few more brain cells to squeeze out maybe two or three more words. Lather, rinse, repeat. Meanwhile, my guy, if he were here, would be sitting inches away from me, ensconced in a linguistically inspired academic force field, impenetrable by every iota of distraction. He's a machine. An academic work horse. Focused as laser light.
I'm standing on the tracks, waiting for an inspiration train to hit me. In the meantime, I will eke out 3 words an hour as I fight the urge to hit up Popeye's and drown my uninspired dissertation-writing existence in grease and the lives of fictional Washington fixers as I miss my bespectacled, freckled, dimpled, wonderful, hard-working, conference-presenting guy.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
I need to be grading midterms and working on my chapter,
but instead, I'm letting my mind wander.
I'm sitting across from my fiancé at a coffee shop we frequent quite often and am taking furtive looks at him as he works consistently, steadily. He's reading an article called "The Syllable in Phonological Theory." I have a stack of Latino Literature and Culture midterms looking up at me expectantly. I tried to start grading them, but the first one I attempted to grade is by a student who obviously didn't study and attempts to compensate for that fact by providing vague, poorly-contextualized answers. A total de-motivator. I use a blue pen. It's much more calming. Red ones make me feel like I'm bleeding out my rage upon answers like this.
We're starting marriage counseling soon. In preparation for it, we've been reading a book given to us by our pastor. Like, taking turns reading the (very short) chapters out loud and then discussing them. All I can say is that we've had some much-needed conversations and it's been good for us. Both of us are kind of non-confrontational people, and we both have a tendency to sort of let things go and not address them if nothing manifests as an obvious problem. Reading the book together has pushed us to talk about things that maybe we haven't had occasion to before. It's brought us together in ways I didn't expect and makes me feel that we're establishing a precedent for how we should and will communicate with each other in our marriage.
Things are slowly coming together for the wedding...my fiancé has taken care of the tux situations; what he's wearing, what the groomsmen will wear, and I've finally gotten things together for the bridesmaids. Fun fact: there are twice as many groomsmen as bridesmaids. We had a tasting with the caterer. We've secured a photographer and baker for the cake(s). We've since sent out our save-the-dates and we've designed our invitations. Things are starting to look like this is actually happening.
Our "anniversary" is coming up. October 21, 2013 is the day we first went to coffee together. (See the "Intra-departmental coffee chats" section in a post that very day.) I could never have fathomed that in less than a year from that day we'd be in love, involved in ministry together, engaged, planning our wedding. When I stop to think about it, it truly seems unbelievable. We're going to celebrate by going back to that same coffee shop this coming Tuesday.
Sigh. I can't believe we're already smack in the middle of October. I need to be further along on my dissertation. I really do. But there are only 210 days left until we get married. 'Only' is relative, I suppose.
I'm sitting across from my fiancé at a coffee shop we frequent quite often and am taking furtive looks at him as he works consistently, steadily. He's reading an article called "The Syllable in Phonological Theory." I have a stack of Latino Literature and Culture midterms looking up at me expectantly. I tried to start grading them, but the first one I attempted to grade is by a student who obviously didn't study and attempts to compensate for that fact by providing vague, poorly-contextualized answers. A total de-motivator. I use a blue pen. It's much more calming. Red ones make me feel like I'm bleeding out my rage upon answers like this.
We're starting marriage counseling soon. In preparation for it, we've been reading a book given to us by our pastor. Like, taking turns reading the (very short) chapters out loud and then discussing them. All I can say is that we've had some much-needed conversations and it's been good for us. Both of us are kind of non-confrontational people, and we both have a tendency to sort of let things go and not address them if nothing manifests as an obvious problem. Reading the book together has pushed us to talk about things that maybe we haven't had occasion to before. It's brought us together in ways I didn't expect and makes me feel that we're establishing a precedent for how we should and will communicate with each other in our marriage.
Things are slowly coming together for the wedding...my fiancé has taken care of the tux situations; what he's wearing, what the groomsmen will wear, and I've finally gotten things together for the bridesmaids. Fun fact: there are twice as many groomsmen as bridesmaids. We had a tasting with the caterer. We've secured a photographer and baker for the cake(s). We've since sent out our save-the-dates and we've designed our invitations. Things are starting to look like this is actually happening.
Our "anniversary" is coming up. October 21, 2013 is the day we first went to coffee together. (See the "Intra-departmental coffee chats" section in a post that very day.) I could never have fathomed that in less than a year from that day we'd be in love, involved in ministry together, engaged, planning our wedding. When I stop to think about it, it truly seems unbelievable. We're going to celebrate by going back to that same coffee shop this coming Tuesday.
Sigh. I can't believe we're already smack in the middle of October. I need to be further along on my dissertation. I really do. But there are only 210 days left until we get married. 'Only' is relative, I suppose.
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
It's Really Not My Day, But That's Okay
It's YOUR day. Things should be the way YOU want them to be. You only get married once!
The last statement is usually followed by a qualifier (cuz in these last and evil days...), but these are common things said to the bride-to-be. It's about YOU. What matters is that YOU'RE happy, that you get what YOU want.
But let's be real, shall we? It's so not about me. It just isn't.
There's something slightly meta about my complaint that "my day" is really not about me, and it's this: The very idea of my wedding day being "mine" and the idea that "my happiness" with everything is paramount being foisted onto me is itself what I don't want.
Do you see what I'm saying? People wanting me to "be happy" with all the choices that are made concerning my wedding and wanting me to own "my big day" and wanting me to want "what I want" is itself a type of pressure that masks itself as not-pressure because it's supposedly simply about my desires for something I've always dreamed of.
Rather, something I'm supposed to have always dreamed of.
I'm not saying that I haven't always wanted to get married. There were times in my life that it wasn't a frantic priority, but I'll be honest enough to say that as I got older, it did become more of a priority. It is something that I've always wanted—to be a wife and, one day, a mother. And I am thrilled that I'm marrying a man who has a relationship with God, who absolutely adores me and who also wants to have a family. Marriage and family are things I've always dreamed of, for sure.
But THE DAY. The fanfare of THE DAY is not something I've always dreamed of. Sure, there are things that I've wanted when and if THE DAY ever came for me. I wanted a medieval/Renaissance-style dress with draping Queen Guinevere sleeves. I wanted sunflowers to be involved. I wanted the color lavender to be involved. I wanted it to be outside. These are the specific things I've wanted and, so far, all of those things are going to be a part of THE DAY. Give me my sleeves, my sunflowers and my lavender outside. That is all I ask.
But I haven't had little pink princess cupcakes with frosting and sprinkles dreams of my wedding ever since I was a little girl. I haven't had this rapturous vision of how everything must be for my happiness to be ensured. And sometimes, because I don't have this rapturous vision, because I don't insist on creating this rapturous vision, I feel not-pressured into wanting what I'm not even sure I want.
To be fair, I am a person who is reluctant to speak up about something if I don't really want it or like it. Most people who say these things to me truly want me to be happy and not be afraid to voice what I want. But even the most benign, "Aren't you excited?" or reminder that "it's only one day, so make it count" can make me feel slightly pressured and paranoid. Like, of course I'm excited, but if I'm not the kind of excited people expect to see (after having been single for sooooooo long, oh, Lord I thought you'd never find someone, you should be screaming from the rooftops and flashing your engagement ring in everyone's face because the Lord finally had mercy on your poor single soul), have I exhibited bride-to-be excitement failure? If my one day doesn't blind you with exquisiteness, have I failed to make it count?
My mom said, "If you really don't want to have a ceremony, you don't have to have one." Yeah, right. So many people would call for my public guillotining if I said that for real. But it's not even about my not wanting to have a ceremony. I think it would be nice to have one. There are so many people who have loved and cared for and supported me and who are important to me and I think celebrating this day with them is a nice idea. It's also probably the only day that our families will all be together. It's a day that I'll want to remember. But all of the reasons that I want to have a ceremony have nothing to do with my wedding as MY day. If I have a ceremony (which I will), it will be precisely because it isn't my day. It's also everyone else's day because I'm choosing to share it with them by having a ceremony in the first place. And that's okay.
The last statement is usually followed by a qualifier (cuz in these last and evil days...), but these are common things said to the bride-to-be. It's about YOU. What matters is that YOU'RE happy, that you get what YOU want.
But let's be real, shall we? It's so not about me. It just isn't.
There's something slightly meta about my complaint that "my day" is really not about me, and it's this: The very idea of my wedding day being "mine" and the idea that "my happiness" with everything is paramount being foisted onto me is itself what I don't want.
Do you see what I'm saying? People wanting me to "be happy" with all the choices that are made concerning my wedding and wanting me to own "my big day" and wanting me to want "what I want" is itself a type of pressure that masks itself as not-pressure because it's supposedly simply about my desires for something I've always dreamed of.
Rather, something I'm supposed to have always dreamed of.
I'm not saying that I haven't always wanted to get married. There were times in my life that it wasn't a frantic priority, but I'll be honest enough to say that as I got older, it did become more of a priority. It is something that I've always wanted—to be a wife and, one day, a mother. And I am thrilled that I'm marrying a man who has a relationship with God, who absolutely adores me and who also wants to have a family. Marriage and family are things I've always dreamed of, for sure.
But THE DAY. The fanfare of THE DAY is not something I've always dreamed of. Sure, there are things that I've wanted when and if THE DAY ever came for me. I wanted a medieval/Renaissance-style dress with draping Queen Guinevere sleeves. I wanted sunflowers to be involved. I wanted the color lavender to be involved. I wanted it to be outside. These are the specific things I've wanted and, so far, all of those things are going to be a part of THE DAY. Give me my sleeves, my sunflowers and my lavender outside. That is all I ask.
But I haven't had little pink princess cupcakes with frosting and sprinkles dreams of my wedding ever since I was a little girl. I haven't had this rapturous vision of how everything must be for my happiness to be ensured. And sometimes, because I don't have this rapturous vision, because I don't insist on creating this rapturous vision, I feel not-pressured into wanting what I'm not even sure I want.
To be fair, I am a person who is reluctant to speak up about something if I don't really want it or like it. Most people who say these things to me truly want me to be happy and not be afraid to voice what I want. But even the most benign, "Aren't you excited?" or reminder that "it's only one day, so make it count" can make me feel slightly pressured and paranoid. Like, of course I'm excited, but if I'm not the kind of excited people expect to see (after having been single for sooooooo long, oh, Lord I thought you'd never find someone, you should be screaming from the rooftops and flashing your engagement ring in everyone's face because the Lord finally had mercy on your poor single soul), have I exhibited bride-to-be excitement failure? If my one day doesn't blind you with exquisiteness, have I failed to make it count?
My mom said, "If you really don't want to have a ceremony, you don't have to have one." Yeah, right. So many people would call for my public guillotining if I said that for real. But it's not even about my not wanting to have a ceremony. I think it would be nice to have one. There are so many people who have loved and cared for and supported me and who are important to me and I think celebrating this day with them is a nice idea. It's also probably the only day that our families will all be together. It's a day that I'll want to remember. But all of the reasons that I want to have a ceremony have nothing to do with my wedding as MY day. If I have a ceremony (which I will), it will be precisely because it isn't my day. It's also everyone else's day because I'm choosing to share it with them by having a ceremony in the first place. And that's okay.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)