Ranty. Composition purgatory. Can I just get married already?

I cannot express how much I loathe grading Spanish compositions.   To be fair, so far, my students have done pretty well.  But they just take forever to grade and it sucks me dry of all motivation to do anything.  I absolutely have to finish them.  This is so ridiculous.  They're just stupid compositions.  Why am I being so whiny and lazy about these dumb things?

Every single time I have to say goodnight to my fiancé, I just feel like ugh.  I just feel like crying.  Even though I know I'm going to see the guy again the next day.  I hate saying goodbye to him.  I hate seeing him leave.  I hate not being with him.  I'm scaring myself with how attached I've become to him.  How I can't imagine life without him.  These don't even sound like words that I'd ever type or think that I'd ever use to express how I feel about another human.  Me?  "I can't imagine life without him"?  It sounds like something I would have made fun of at one time because it's just so cliche and overblown and dramatic.  Fresh out of a sappy chick flick.  Verbatim from a poorly-written romance novel.  But here we are.  There are those laid-bare little vulnerable feelings, quivering and teary-eyed and exposed and in awe of what it means to completely hand over your heart for life.

This man.  Him.  He's gentle.  He has handled my heart with such painstaking care.  In the same tender way he holds my hand.  Then presses it to his chest.  Then kisses it.  With those shy lashes and green brown eyes looking right at me.

There's a mental block holding up my brain called "I'm getting married."  When I sit down to grade compositions.  When I think about how I'm going to structure my next chapter.  When I think about the possibility of expanding a paper for submission.  Anything work-related gets sideswiped by "I'm getting married."  I feel like if I can just get married, just become his wife, just get all the wedding jitters and planning and speculation and expectation over with and out of my system, I can settle down into this new stage of life and regain my focus.  Because right now, I'm a barely-tethered helium balloon being battered about by hordes of giddy fluttery butterflies.

Here's something I realized: Last Valentine's Day was the first Valentine's Day I'd ever spent with a sweetheart.  This Valentine's Day will be my first Valentine's Day as an engaged woman.  Next Valentine's Day will be my first Valentine's Day as a married woman.  A series of Valentine's Day firsts.  Well, whaddya know.