In a little under two weeks, I will be married. During this long journey to the alter, my mind has gone through a series of thoughts, and my heart, a number of feelings. Each experience has left me with new lessons learned and memories not soon forgotten. I have been able to summarize them as being five stages, excitement, anticipation, overwhelmed, fear, and happiness.
On July 26, 2008, it will have been 16 months between the time I proposed and the time we say "I do." Emily and I have been through a lot together these past 16 months and I dare say more than our 4 previous years together has given us. This blog will summarize everything we went through, condensed into the five stages of our engagement.
Excitement: Emily and I got engaged on her birthday last year. I had baked her a chocolate cake and hid the ring box in a jar of dog biscuits knowing she would soon reach in there to reward our pup for doing his business outside and sparing us from cleaning it up inside. When she pulled it out and unwrapped it, I went over to where she stood, dropped on one knee, and professed my strong desire to spend the rest of my life devoted to her happiness. She was speechless (for the first time ever!) and cried and said yes. I cried and hugged her and kissed her then quickly texted everyone I knew that we had gotten engaged. She did the same. That same night, we drove to the bookstore and shared a piece of carpet leafing through wedding books. We were so excited.
The next few weeks were spent sharing the good news with everyone and imagining how we would want our wedding to look. Out of all our close friends, we had been dating the longest yet the last to be engaged. I don't think the timing was ever right up till then and I think we were wise to wait as long as we did. I was happy we didn't rush into anything and really sought our true feelings out for one another before we took the plunge.
As the summer approached, we began visiting different locals and speaking with many wedding vendors which kicked off the planning process. This also led to fierce anticipation.
Anticipation: As the clay that was our wedding began to take form, Emily and I were both becoming more and more anxious for the big day to arrive. Emily, along with her obese wedding binder had become connected at the hip and I soon learned that no matter how much you express your opinion, ultimately, the bride has the final say in every decision. Still, I was just as excited as she was to walk down the aisle and start our life together.
Your mind begins to relive past weddings you had been to and make mental notes of what you did and did not like about each one. Then you take the likes, add your own twist to it and bingo, you just came up with an original idea that will make your wedding stand out among all others. You begin to run through your list of friends and decide who you want in the wedding party. You look forward to asking those you want there and regret leaving others out. For Emily and I, we were given a dollar amount to play with and had to try to do our best to stay within those parameters. But as we found out, planning a wedding can leave one, overwhelmed.
Overwhelmed: I've heard people tell me that, "When I got married, our wedding only cost us a few hundred dollars!" "Why just 5 years ago, a plate at our wedding was only $20!" Well those days are long gone. Today, weddings are big business and costly affairs. Instances that I have detailed in past blogs blew my mind and prices vendors quoted us made my mind grapes shrivel up and die from pure shock. Unless you're lucky enough to spare no expense, every couple will struggle to pay for a wedding. You can count yourselves blessed to avoid going into debt after everything is said and done. Lucky for me, Emily is a financial wizard and kept track of every cent that was spent on the wedding. But even she could not avoid the inevitability of over spending.
A good amount of these 16 months have been spent arguing over the cost of things, deciding what we can and can not include, and exactly which bar package to pick without looking like total cheap asses. I envy those who are able to afford their dream wedding, not because I didn't get what I want out of mine, but because they didn't have to sweat over the dollars and cents of it all. It is indeed an overwhelming experience that hopefully will only be a once in a lifetime event.
Fear: Fear is of course constant in all our lives. Its what drives us to work hard, to treat each other right, to believe in what we believe, and to act the way we do in every situation. I think the fear really took hold of me around the beginning of the year. Someone asked if I could believe that this was the year I was going to get married. I guess I had not really pictured myself being married. I was focused on being with the one I loved, and planning a wedding, but the label "married" hadn't crossed my mind until then.
I suddenly became fixated on what my parents had gone though with their marriage, how damaging and sad it had been. Just think about it, my dad was 27 when he got married, the same age I would be. I believe that you are a combination of three people, your mother, your father, and one other person that touched your life. That person can be anyone, a professor, close friend, ex lover, anyone. For me it is, well I'm not going to reveal that. I have to keep some mystery about myself.
The thought of being married initially brought feelings of doubt about myself. I can't get married, I'm too immature, too selfish, too stupid, too scared to make it work. I can't end up like my parents, hating each other and fucking up their kids in the process. I started to see a lot of them in me in the way I spoke, thought, and handled myself in conflict. I guess it had always been there but now I was aware of its presents. That scared me to death. So what did I do? I lashed out at the one person who could bring sanity and civility to my life. I talked down and deliberately did stuff to piss her off. I attempted to bring her down to my level thinking it would force her to do what so many others had done in my past, which was walk away.
She didn't. Instead, she grabbed me by my rapidly graying hair, smacked me in the face, and showed me that I am my own man as well as her man. She showed me that I can be happy and can avoid the mistakes of the past. She showed me I have a better future, one free from fear.
Happiness: Today, I am happy. Despite all that has happened in our relationship, Emily and I are ready to become one. Sure there will be tough times ahead but we will deal with them together. There will be fights and tears shed but the love we have for one another will guide us through each tribulation and restore the happiness. We are together for a reason and have lasted as long as we have for a reason. There were plenty of times where we could have walked away and had even expressed a desire to do so, but we always came out of it stronger and more in love. We have survived the five stages and are ready to tackle the next stage...forever.
