One Week(ish) In

We've been married for a little over a week now. Jordan said this to me on our honeymoon, and I think it describes well how things have been so far: "Isn't it funny how not different this feels?"

Jordan and I have been together nearly four years. We've soared through the elated first year, suffered a break-up, navigated the choppy waters of relationship defining and getting back together. After all of that, it's true; while getting married is a huge step, in a lot of ways it only feels natural. Jordan is my best friend, my spiritual guide, my "inner logician" (a term he gave himself when he decided I tend to neglect logic when making basic decisions). And now, he's my husband. A new title to add to the list, but things haven't changed that much.

On the flip side, I have been thinking about the changes that have taken place, even if they're subtle ones. My mom and sisters live not five minutes away from our new apartment, but now I've dropped down to seeing them once or twice a week as opposed to every single day. It's kind of like when you graduate; the friends you're used to seeing almost every day are now, suddenly, incredibly far away. I'm always surprised at how much effort it requires to regularly visit friends and family even when you live in the same town as them. Everyone is always so busy; work, school, other obligations and responsibilities, unexpected circumstances. Even at less than five minutes away, you still have to make a firm effort to see people.

Even though it's been only a little over a week, I feel a little sad at the thought of pulling away fro my family. We'll always be family, of course, and I will always love and cherish the wonderful family God has blessed me with, but Jordan is my priority relationship now. Our family, the me-and-him family, is the one that needs the most attention and nourishment. It's going to be a somewhat strange transition, but like I said before, it feels very natural in a lot of ways, too.

Since the wedding planning is all over now, I'm not sure how much I'll be posting on here anymore. Feel free to check out my normal blog for basic life updates. I think I'll keep writing on Wedding Thoughts for a while, and I'll definitely keep it up and running, but I think it's time to start weening off of it.

That said, I feel like I should end with some moving reflection on the journey of getting married. Since I can't think of anything right now, I'll just say this: Jordan and I were talking about it last night, and while the wedding is certainly the culmination of months of stress and planning and appointments and shopping, it is only the beginning. Who knows what the future holds? Whatever it is, Jordan and I have impossibly promised each other that even though we have no idea what might happen, we will stand by each other. It is only thanks to God and his grace, and our marriage firmly tied together by Christ, that we may stay true to our word.

Lord have mercy.

The New Life That Awaits Has Already Begun

I can't write much because it's almost 1:00 and tomorrow, I'm getting married.

Somehow, this all still feels surreal. Or maybe, it's not surrealism I'm feeling, but a sense that this is all natural and normal. It feels normal to be with Jordan, to be marrying him. Of course, tomorrow is not a normal, ordinary day; in fact, tomorrow is going to be one of those days where the ordinary (a chapel, a restaurant, a dress, a party, a room where I wait with my friends and family to walk down an aisle) becomes extraordinary. But in a way, after all of this planning and preparation and expectation and anticipation, this just feels right. In a way, as a mentor of mine once put it, "the new life that awaits has already begun." Jordan already feels like a husband to me. He's been a leader and a lover and a giver. We're involved with each other's families. He's come to France with us twice - first in January to visit, then in May for my grandfather's funeral. I remember distinctly thinking on that trip that it was one of those times where the new life had already begun. He comforted my mom, holding her in a hug after we went to the viewing. He talked and laughed and fellowshipped with my cousins and aunts and uncles. He looked after me when I started to feel sick. I wonder how different our relationship will, or won't, feel after tomorrow.

I keep thinking about how this is such a huge thing that we're doing, and I keep thinking that I should be more nervous and frightened than I am. But I also have a strong feeling that I'm going to wake up in the morning very nervous. I can fall asleep because I'm tired, but once I wake up tomorrow I think it'll be go go go until 2:00.

I really want to be calm and focused and aware tomorrow. I don't want it to be a "blur", as so many people say it will be. Anna told me the other day that she was really in awe at her sister's wedding last summer, because she realized that it's such a rare and special and amazing thing to be making a covenant before God and witnesses. That same mentor I quoted earlier also told me this: tomorrow is a day that will be full of outrageous promises that are only made and kept by grace. I couldn't put it better myself.

By God's grace I have Jordan in my life. By grace I have the family and friends I do, who have helped me and loved me and comforted me and inspired me and lived with me throughout this whole process, and who will be there at my side tomorrow. I think it's amazing that Jordan and I are literally going to be flanked by some of the most special people in our lives. We each have a fleet of wingmen who are there to watch out for us and cheer us on.

Tonight, I'm going to pray that God will grant us grace and peace tomorrow.

Soon, I want to catch up on all those things I mentioned earlier, as well as my awesome bachelorette party. I knew Rebekah would do a good job.

Confessions (two days to go!)

For the most part, I think I've been pretty good this whole time about not being perfectionistic about our wedding. Hannah and I like to watch "Say Yes to the Dress" on TLC from time to time, and while I enjoy seeing the different branches of wedding fashion, I am always floored by how much the featured brides are willing to shell out for a dress they're going to wear for one day. The cheapest gowns I've ever seen on the show are about $3,000, and some episodes have spotlighted brides obsessed with gowns up to $10,000.

Of course, it's easy to let all of the wedding preparations balloon out of control. It seems that the thought that "this only happens once" can easily take hold of even the most level-headed brides. I'm not always the most level-headed, but when shopping for a gown, or making the invitations, or picking music for the ceremony, I didn't really let things go to my head. I don't really remember thinking, "this has to be perfect because this is our only shot" about any of those things. I mentioned this to Jordan, and he responded, "Good. Keep thinking that way."

But with the wedding so close, and reality sinking in that this is really happening, and all eyes will be on us that day, I honestly think that our wedding, as well as aspects of the preparations, have turned into idols. Somewhere between a month to go and two weeks to go, the wedding became gilded in gold, and it morphed into this combination of unrealistic ideals and thoughts of what-ifs and it-should've-been. It's taken a couple of breakdowns and a couple of lost hours of sleep and several rational talks with Jordan to make me realize that I have begun to "perfectionist" the wedding, getting in arguments with Jordan over things like whether we should sing a hymn in the ceremony, or picking out songs to put on our CD mix wedding favors.

I think I understand why this happens, at least in part. Let me speak from a woman's perspective: typically, a woman's wedding day is probably the only day in her life where everyone is waiting on her hand and foot; everyone is anticipating her entrance into the ceremony; all eyes are on her, photographers follow her every move like paparazzi, everyone tells her how beautiful she is, everyone is thinking about her, her, her. With all of that attention comes a lot of pressure, and who wouldn't want everything to be perfect? After all, this is basically the biggest party of your life, literally hundreds of people show up, and most brides spend months (or, Lord help them, over a year) preparing for this, as well as preparing themselves, striving to be as beautiful as possible.

So yeah, it can get a little overwhelming, to say the least. And I am the kind of person who can place a lot of stock in events like this; I desperately want things to go perfectly, so that I have nothing but pleasant, beautiful memories to give me happiness for the rest of my days. But there are a lot of things wrong with that sentence. First of all, nothing is going to go perfectly, and it's definitely not going to go exactly how you expect it to. If I had it my way, all of my family and friends would be here all of the time, and we would laugh and plan and be excited about everything together. But as it is, my family doesn't all live in one place, and many of my far-away friends can't make the trip, either for financial reasons or because of previous commitments they can't get out of.

Secondly, I have a tendency to bank way too much of my emotional and even spiritual security in my own happiness. If I'm not happy, you see, than something's wrong. If I'm not unable to contain my excitement at any given moment, I obviously have some kind of personal problems preventing me from experiencing the pure, unfluctuating pre-marital bliss that could be mine, if only my attitude was better.

Truth is, the eight months we've been engaged have been difficult. I changed schools, I missed my sister, my grandfather passed away, my family is moving from my childhood home to a different state. I've faced a lot of big life changes in a relatively short amount of time. It's been a crucible of life-altering choices and changes, you could say.

I have to admit, I idealize what I see among the many other couples I know who are about to get married. I only see a tiny fraction of their lives, but I impose a state of perfection onto them. I think that things are going so easily, so smoothly, there's nothing hard about making the choice to get married.

I was talking about these things with my dear friend and bridesmaid Anna today. She flew into town this afternoon and is going to be staying with me for the big weekend. When everyone else was out running errands, Anna and I had the house to ourselves, and while we worked on wedding tasks we were afforded some much-needed one-on-one time just to talk, like we used to so often when we lived together at Biola (never roommates, but room-neighbors, then dorm-neighbors). I confessed to Anna that I was comforted to hear about another woman getting married who is not skipping with excitement, but a little apprehensive about the big change that awaits her. I love Anna because she often sees a side of things that I don't, at least not immediately, so she helps to pull me out of my funks and keep me grounded.

"Everyone approaches change differently," she said. "Some people are just like, 'YEEESSS!', but others think about the different sides of it more, and see the happy and the sad. Whenever you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else, and it can be hard to say no to good things even when the thing you're getting is so great. And that's not inhuman."

And that's really what marriage is. Saying yes to one person, and saying no to everyone else. I have confidence that Jordan is the person I want to say yes to, but the seriousness and resolution of making that kind of commitment are aw-inspiring at least, even a little fearsome.

But that commitment is a good thing. It's a God thing. It's something that, as Pastor Mark Scales (our officiant) has said, Satan hates. And as a Christian, I love doing things that Satan hates.

I guess this all ties into the idolatry thing because I've realized that I can't rely on things like the wedding, or the parties leading up to it, or any part of this process for emotional security or my own happiness. Jordan and I were talking about this last night, and as we held hands and walked around my neighborhood in the purplish twilight I told him, "I just want my happiness to come from you and Jesus." (Jesus more, obviously, but I was trying to emphasize the fact that my spouse ought to be my rock, as far as human relationships go.)

If I find that I am sinking into an emotional bog because some expectation about the wedding wasn't met, or something goes wrong and ruins my day, or even because I obsess over the ceremony programs because they ought to be just so and wonderful and they should move people, I'm worshiping idols. The wedding planning idol, which is part of the wedding day idol, which is part of the if-I-don't-have-[fill in the blank]-then-I'm-going-to-be-forever-unhappy idol. I'm comforted again by the words of Pastor Mark: "I don't remember being very excited about planning the wedding, or even the wedding itself, but I know I enjoy being married."

In short, yes; of all the days of your life, I think everyone has a certain right to want their wedding day to go well, and to reflect them, and to be enjoyable and memorable. But I'm also getting to the point where I'm ready to be done and married and in possession of the time to write and read for pleasure, and go to movies with my husband, and relax and have breakfast on our little apartment patio.

But first, I'd like to have my bachelorette party. Word on the street is, it's going to be AWESOME.

I'm pretty disappointed in myself. I've let myself fall off the edge of the blogosphere, and now it's going to be hard for me to get back in, especially with the inevitable business this weekend is going to bring. Did I mention that we're getting married in four days?

I've got a couple of blogs, and lots of thoughts, on backlog. I'm not sure the best way to do this; I think I'll try to backtrack by working through the past couple of weeks until I get back to the present.

I can't get over the feeling that I've failed a little bit. I know there's not a lot riding on my writings here - only my own self-processing and peace of mind - but I wanted to be more consistent than I have been. I'm not giving up, though. And I'm trying to beat this dejected attitude by reminding myself that just because the wedding planning process is coming to a close, it doesn't mean that I, or our relationship, is done growing.