Now it feels real.
A year ago tomorrow Joey asked me to marry him, and I thought that next year would drag by. We knew we wanted a long engagement, and looking back I'm glad we did so we could take our time with the planning. (Stressed B is not a happy B.) And in some respects, this year did drag. Yet here we are, a little over two months from the wedding that has consumed our last 365 days (except for that super fun four months in the middle of it when everybody was falling apart - which, while the reason was awful, was admittedly a nice break), with only a handful of details to work out. And while it's been stressful and at times not very fun at all, our special day will be a beautiful culmination of careful planning and detailed orchestration, an elegant kickoff to the journey that will carry us for the rest of our lives, the coming together of a couple of kids who don't believe in fate but know that they're meant to be together.
Someone asked me at the shower on Saturday if I was getting cold feet yet. I guess this is normal: the bride or groom suddenly has second thoughts and the blissful union runs risk of being scrapped. But while we've kicked ourselves at least once a week for not eloping months ago, I have to admit I have yet to have that "Father of the Bride" moment when I get offended about something and demand that all the gifts be sent back tout suite.
Trust me, I know what uncertainty feels like. I'm well acquainted with that quiet nag in my gut of "oh my God, I can't do this." I'm pretty good at deciding between irrational fears and that God-given wariness that this might not be the right decision. And while I've felt those feelings in nearly every single area of my life in the past eighteen months (well, five years, really), I have never once had those doubts about my marriage to my gentle giant. Of all the things that I worry about, of this I am most certain. Naturally I worry that I won't be a good wife and that thirty years down the road it'll all come crashing down revealing the illusion that it's always been, but those are merely the imprints of someone else's reality that I lay on top of our story and call our truth.
I have this feeling in my gut that we will work. We are one of those old-fashioned stories of two people who fell in love and will fight to stay together for the sake of a promise, an active commitment to something larger than our petty arguments and trivial anxieties.
I don't imagine that agreement will make it easier. But I'm a firm believer that anything worth having is made so much sweeter by hard work. I am ready. I'm ready for this next phase as the one we've been in for the last year will reach fruition in just sixty-five days. I'm ready to enter a God-honoring union with the man whom my soul loves.
I don't think I've been more ready for anything.
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