Since I am one week away from being a married person, I feel as if I have kind of run the engagement marathon. I have been engaged for a little more than seven months now. I have learned along this journey that there are stages of being engaged and for all of you folks who have not been engaged, here's a little summary of what to experience if you ever find yourself a fiancee...
1. "LET ME SEE YOUR RING!!!" Early on in this process, news slowly spread about Cody and me being engaged. Suddenly I found myself everywhere I went with my left hand out in front of me with someone remarking on how pretty they thought my ring was. I was often told "He did good," in reference to my ring. Everyone loved it. At the beginning of this stage, I didn't think much of this. However, after about a month of dangling my hand for all the world to see, it started to get a little old. I had told an abridged version of our engagement way too many times to count, and I also recognized that not everyone was so enthralled with my ring as they pretended to be. And I know from personal experience some folks immediately walked away with their friend or boyfriend and immediately began analyzing what they didn't like about my ring. Either way, this stage was cool for about five minutes. Luckily, I still have the ring and I like it whether you do or not.
2. "What are your colors?" About three seconds after I found myself engaged to be married questions started coming at me from every direction about every tiny detail of my wedding. What are your colors? How many bridesmaids? Who are they? Where's the reception? Have you gotten your dress? Who's your photographer? Who's your florist? (Oh, she's great). Where's the honeymoon? Where are you going to live? Are you living with him now?...There was an absolute plethora of questions to be answered about my wedding. Generally, I didn't know the answers and only had to respond with "I don't know." And often times I was a little taken aback by some of the questions that people asked that didn't really have anything to do with the wedding. The things about my life with Cody that you wouldn't ever ask anyone unless they were getting married (like do you already live with him?) It was weird. I even had one person give me a book about how to have sex. Uhhhhh...that's not normal and it's also awkward to an exponential degree. I often times equated this process to being pregnant. For some reason when people are obviously pregnant others throw out any sort of courtesy for that pregnant woman. Without blinking their hands on our her stomach as if that is a normal thing to do to someone. Being engaged is like giving people a reason to ask you every question they could ever think about your personal life. Weird.
3. "Is there anything I can do to help?" I have been asked this question a hundred times here recently. Don't get me wrong. I like knowing that people want to help me. The bad part is that I'm not one of those people who delegates anything very well, so I have turned down offers to help numerous times. I don't know how to tell people to do anything for my wedding because it's MY wedding. You don't know what I like. I'm extrememly picky and generally not even my own mother can do it right, so I have stopped considering letting most people help me. Apparently I want to run this race by myself whether that's a good idea or not.
4. "Are you ready?" This has been the most recent stage of the engagement process. Once you are only weeks away from being married, you start having people ask you if you're nervous or more often "ready" to be married. I just smile and nod when on the inside I wonder what they are asking me about. Are they asking if all of the wedding details are in order? If so, the answer is probably no. For the past few weeks I have been running around like a crazy person trying to ensure the fewest number of things possible blow up on June 19th. Are they asking if I am ready to be married to Cody? To actually live with him and share my life with him now and forever...Surprisingly, I think this would be the easiest question to answer with a yes. I am ready to be married. I don't worry about this being the right thing. I worry about the logistics of the food stations at our reception. I don't worry about whether or not we are going to be happy together, I worry about the angle at which the lights are going to hit the dance floor. I don't worry about whether or not Cody and I are making the right decision by getting married. I worry about all of the ridiculous planning that has gone into this one day in our life.
However, I think this is how it's supposed to be. I figured out the other day that they only thing that has kept me relatively sane throughout this process is Cody. I have been running through a really dark, scary tunnel of wedding planning for seven months now. I have cried and second guessed myself and given up and gotten mad and wanted to do anything other than have this wedding. I have been literally exhausted over June 19, 2010. But every time I lifted my eyes to glance at the end of this wedding tunnel, I have seen Cody holding a cup of water and a towel and naturally the first place trophy that I will win for placing first in this wedding marathon, and I have found a reason to keep going. I have started viewing all that is a wedding as the final obstacle in my relationship with Cody. It's God's way of testing you one more time to see if you are really meant to be with one another. The closer I get to June 19th, the closer I get to Cody. And that is the reason I have endured the hand raping, the extensive interrogations, endless planning, and all that is the stress of marriage. I want the prize at the end of this race more than I have wanted any prize before. And if that means I wear a big white dress and walk down an aisle and let everyone in on the personal details of my life, then so be it. I have never been one to quit a race.
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