10 Days

10 days.

Huge stack of final exams cackling at me, daring me to even start grading them.  I have a half-baked online class waiting for me to click, add, upload, screencast.  Students emailing me making up stories about how they neeeeeed to get into this online Spanish I class to graduate.  Really?  In no existing program at this august university does anyone need Spanish I to graduate.  Get outta here with that.

One last session of marriage counseling scheduled tomorrow.  Why does it make me so nervous?  Why is the idea of the ceremony still making me so nervous?  Why can't I peacefully exist and peacefully and gratefully usher myself into my blissful, perfect, prized life as a happy, blissful perfect wife?  Why can't I be gushingly happy and wake up every morning shedding tears of gratitude, thanking my lucky stars that I finally found a man and that he's so cute and that he's gonna be my BFF for life and we're going to be happy in our little happy happy life and have cute, fat little happy babies who are going to be SO BEAUTIFUL since...you know.

My wedding dress.  What is it going to look like?  Omigawd.  And the marriage license.  And what kind of shoes am I going to wear?  And, Dad, do you like this song for our father/daughter dance?  Are you guys going to sing? Omigawd.  Can you imagine me trying to sling a guitar strap over my wedding dress?  Please.  He'll play and sing, but I'm just going to sing.  And what are my colors going to be?  And can children come?  Oh, I'm so sorry I forgot to RSVP.  Can I still come?  Rehearsal dinner.  Rehearse and then dine.  Lingerie shower.  A shower of lingerie.  Omigawd.  There's the big day, but the big night is coming up, too.  Heh, heh.  Hint, hint.  Yeah, yeah, I get it.  You're so funny and original.  I'll go ahead and say it, since it's so funny.  Sex.  Wedding night = sex.  My husband and I are going to have sex.  We're getting married so we can have sex.  There.  I said it.

Announcement to my enlightened colleagues: Yes, I have made the heart-wrenching decision to succumb to the hegemonic clutches of the white, male, straight, privileged, racist, classist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, capitalist, colonialist, nationalistic, fascist, murderous, douchey, bromancified, American-speaking, fratboyish, beer-drinking patriarchy to change my last name.  I shall lay down my maiden name, the name of my truest self, the name that represents my authenticity as a real woman (even though it, too, was forced upon me by the patriarchy) and sacrifice it as a martyr to the cause of fully becoming a subservient sellout.

I don't want to just want my wedding day to come and be done with.  I don't want to want that.  I want to enjoy it.  I want to tell the contradictory, worrying, hyperactive, dramatic, obsessive part of my brain to calm down and shut up and chill out and please, just for once, let me live.