Anticlimax, and rapid buildup...
Apr. 17th, 2006 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarflameSo Lent is over. I spent 40 days not using the computer except for a couple of rare exceptions, and reading a Lenten devotional most days, and doing christian marriage counseling. Then Easter comes...and we didn't go to church.
Honestly, how lame is that? How ridiculous? I was geared up to go; I had a place and a time in mind before bed, and Ananda's dress of choice washed and put into the dryer. Then Isaac and Jake started taking turns waking us up at like 8 like they always do, and I knew church didn't start until 11 so I didn't think much of 8:40, 9:10, 9:52...next thing I know it's 11:20 and Grant has let me sleep in, to be nice. *sigh*
Anyway we had green eggs and ham for breakfast as per our tradition, after a prayer, and then I read them the resurrection story. Later in the day we made Nigella Lawson's "Easter Nests" and took them to a party my sister's sister in law was having and they had an egg hunt and all.
There are a couple of you I've missed a lot but overall, when I peruse my friends' page, I have the feeling of "...Why was I glued to this constantly before?" I mean, really, all this food_porn and clothdiapering garbage, and all these booju mooju debates... I think I'm going to drop all my communities and make livejournal a once a day/every other day thing. I know that I am the type of person that, if I don't give myself some sort of structured guideline, will become immersed up to my eyeballs in refreshing again, so I have to think of something workable. I like reading birth stories and boob_nazi jokes and all, but not all day every day...
I'm FREAKING OUT about the wedding. It's, um - THURSDAY. I don't know if I can make this make any sort of comprehensible sense to rational people, but...I can't shake off the terror that it won't actually happen. Me being a wife, this family all having the same last name, having a real wedding ceremony full of tradition - all of these things seem totally unrealistic to me on some level. Mentally I know that it's most likely going to happen and that it's totally possible, etc, but emotionally it just seems so insanely outlandish...it feels normal and fitting to me to lack credibility, to gloss over and call Grant "my husband" at La Leche League meetings, to wonder what people at churches would think if they knew we weren't actually married, etc. It feels normal and like the state of tension and chaos I've always existed in, to be in this ongoing spiritual struggle with sex and guilt and repentance and all that. My parents never remarried after they divorced when I was 6 - my mom was with Jud for 14 years and my dad has been with Madie for like 18 years and it was always just this rollercoaster of are they breaking up, week after week...My mom is married NOW but my mom is also a person with a degree now, who gets on fair rides and gets tattoos - she's different and nothing like what I grew up with. She has cherry wood furniture in her house and expensive paintings on the walls and doilies on the endtables.
I just have this unshakeable idea in my head that things can only get so good before they end. You can only love someone so much before they go away/die/whatever. With that comes this fear of vulnerability and it's like the closer this gets, the more vulnerable I feel, and also the more I sense that whatever imminent tragedy is coming is about to happen. My mother in law's husband Chuck got in a car accident 3 or 4 days ago and was in the hospital, taken there by ambulance, and it was almost like relief for me to hear it...a part of me thought Oh, ok, here it is. Chuck will die and Teresa will be miserable and we'll have to stay here and help them out, with Mindy's kids and all. Chuck was fine, though, he got chest x-rays because he had some difficulty breathing at first...and he's fine.
SO WHAT IS IT?! much of me screams...are we going to get in an accident on the way up there? Am I going to get some freaking phone call, about Grant, is my sister going to get horribly hurt and not be able to make it as our cake baking, maid of honoring babysitter, WHAT?! Mindy's husband Greg is unstable as all get out and they keep having full out fights and then I hear about it from mother in law, and it's like...is he gonna drive by one day when we're having tea in the front yard and shoot us all? IT COULD HAPPEN, a voice in the back of my mind screams.
Meanwhile...we are so busy with things, and it's emotionally exhausting for me. Friday we went and stood in line, all 6 of us since Grant and I both had to "present ourselves", and got our marriage license (it costs $93.50 now, by the way, and I think that's highway robbery), and then went to 6 MORE different stores and FINALLY found black pants in Aaron's size. Then we drove aaaaall the way to West Palm Beach for our in-person counseling with Don on Saturday, and Shaun came with us for babysitting, and then on the way back we stopped and got a huge amount of natural soda for the reception, from Wild Oats. Today I have to call Cheryl, we have to pick up my dress with it's new zipper, we have to fax Don all our ceremony preferences from the one we picked, we have to go buy food and find coolers and...I haven't written my vows. And I have no idea what to write.
And what's more I become a nervous wreck everytime I think about it and can't think of ANYTHING to say. That's right, folks, *I* can't think of anything to say. I love him, I really and truly believe I'll always love him. We've grown up together since we met in middle school. He's one of the only people I actually, really look up to and admire. I say prayers all the time that we'll both live to grow old together. We laugh every night, we have tickle fights and philosophical conversations and sweet kisses... But what the heck am I supposed to VOW? The truth is the whole thing just makes me feel inferior and inadequate because he can say things like, "I've always loved you and waited for you, and I always will, and there's nothing you can do to mess that up", and my response to that mentally is all this hoohaw about how I broke up with him a bunch of times and had a long relationship with someone else and had to go through a bunch of counseling to get to the point where I don't just accept people walking on me or abusing those I love and I feel like to have boundaries means you can't SAY "I'll love you no matter what", I'm such a headcase that I think things like "I'll always love you unless you molest one of our kids or hit me or or or or, but I also love you because I don't think that stuff would ever happen, so it's all good". Vows those are not. I suck, and I'm crying about it.
And I dread standing in front of 30 or 40 people on video and sobbing my eyes out with a big red swollen nose, too, like I know I will because whether it's the inscription for the (beautiful, I can't stop looking at them everytime I pass the box in the kitchen) rings or the letters he's written me or whatever...he's going to turn me into a basketcase with whatever's he written. Just like he manages to completely surprise me with PERFECT gifts on every. single. occassion. and I have never been able to think of anything without prompting, every surprise gets blown....I start to think I have nothing to offer this man and am only the blessed recipient of his charity.
!
Yes, yes. I cook for him, I bring him blankets when he's sleeping, I understand him and he can't imagine anyone else raising our kids. We share many interests and he thinks I'm hot. I don't have to prove myself, this guy has been in love with me for 12 years and nothing I've ever done has ever messed it up and...I can't deal with having so many eggs in one basket like that. I can't deal with him meaning so much OR with the idea that maybe I could go on eventually without him if something horrible did happen.
I'm going to have to completely dissasociate myself from the entire wedding just to not be balling with snot dripping everywhere the whole time. Just to make it up the aisle.
*Tearing my hair out*
Off I go to tackle my MASSIVE to do list of wedding related items, and/or procrastinate through knitting. Assuming I don't puke.
ETA: It's not vows but I did feel the rush to write a poem for the first time in what may be years. I call it
What is this leap of faith we take,
As if we were not mortal?
Promises made for "forever"
When we have only a while?
My heart breaks for the optimism -
I wilt in this glare of hope!
I wonder how brave I can dare to be
In this one life I have on loan.
Do we really rush through youth -
Maybe thirty years of racing only to
Wile away decades, watching
Out the window as the next run by?
Can it really be, for me personally
Seventy years of skin slowly wrinkled
And stories told of brief and fleeting
Times gone by?
I think that I could savor a century of
Quiet nights, laughing crying kissing nights I
Believe that if we only slip through
Every crack, and chance, and find,
Elusive long life "together" then
I think every minute dream movie talk drive
Would be sweet with your continual awareness;
I've never been able to pick out a gift but in full awareness
I am ready to give my whole one life to you.
Honestly, how lame is that? How ridiculous? I was geared up to go; I had a place and a time in mind before bed, and Ananda's dress of choice washed and put into the dryer. Then Isaac and Jake started taking turns waking us up at like 8 like they always do, and I knew church didn't start until 11 so I didn't think much of 8:40, 9:10, 9:52...next thing I know it's 11:20 and Grant has let me sleep in, to be nice. *sigh*
Anyway we had green eggs and ham for breakfast as per our tradition, after a prayer, and then I read them the resurrection story. Later in the day we made Nigella Lawson's "Easter Nests" and took them to a party my sister's sister in law was having and they had an egg hunt and all.
There are a couple of you I've missed a lot but overall, when I peruse my friends' page, I have the feeling of "...Why was I glued to this constantly before?" I mean, really, all this food_porn and clothdiapering garbage, and all these booju mooju debates... I think I'm going to drop all my communities and make livejournal a once a day/every other day thing. I know that I am the type of person that, if I don't give myself some sort of structured guideline, will become immersed up to my eyeballs in refreshing again, so I have to think of something workable. I like reading birth stories and boob_nazi jokes and all, but not all day every day...
I'm FREAKING OUT about the wedding. It's, um - THURSDAY. I don't know if I can make this make any sort of comprehensible sense to rational people, but...I can't shake off the terror that it won't actually happen. Me being a wife, this family all having the same last name, having a real wedding ceremony full of tradition - all of these things seem totally unrealistic to me on some level. Mentally I know that it's most likely going to happen and that it's totally possible, etc, but emotionally it just seems so insanely outlandish...it feels normal and fitting to me to lack credibility, to gloss over and call Grant "my husband" at La Leche League meetings, to wonder what people at churches would think if they knew we weren't actually married, etc. It feels normal and like the state of tension and chaos I've always existed in, to be in this ongoing spiritual struggle with sex and guilt and repentance and all that. My parents never remarried after they divorced when I was 6 - my mom was with Jud for 14 years and my dad has been with Madie for like 18 years and it was always just this rollercoaster of are they breaking up, week after week...My mom is married NOW but my mom is also a person with a degree now, who gets on fair rides and gets tattoos - she's different and nothing like what I grew up with. She has cherry wood furniture in her house and expensive paintings on the walls and doilies on the endtables.
I just have this unshakeable idea in my head that things can only get so good before they end. You can only love someone so much before they go away/die/whatever. With that comes this fear of vulnerability and it's like the closer this gets, the more vulnerable I feel, and also the more I sense that whatever imminent tragedy is coming is about to happen. My mother in law's husband Chuck got in a car accident 3 or 4 days ago and was in the hospital, taken there by ambulance, and it was almost like relief for me to hear it...a part of me thought Oh, ok, here it is. Chuck will die and Teresa will be miserable and we'll have to stay here and help them out, with Mindy's kids and all. Chuck was fine, though, he got chest x-rays because he had some difficulty breathing at first...and he's fine.
SO WHAT IS IT?! much of me screams...are we going to get in an accident on the way up there? Am I going to get some freaking phone call, about Grant, is my sister going to get horribly hurt and not be able to make it as our cake baking, maid of honoring babysitter, WHAT?! Mindy's husband Greg is unstable as all get out and they keep having full out fights and then I hear about it from mother in law, and it's like...is he gonna drive by one day when we're having tea in the front yard and shoot us all? IT COULD HAPPEN, a voice in the back of my mind screams.
Meanwhile...we are so busy with things, and it's emotionally exhausting for me. Friday we went and stood in line, all 6 of us since Grant and I both had to "present ourselves", and got our marriage license (it costs $93.50 now, by the way, and I think that's highway robbery), and then went to 6 MORE different stores and FINALLY found black pants in Aaron's size. Then we drove aaaaall the way to West Palm Beach for our in-person counseling with Don on Saturday, and Shaun came with us for babysitting, and then on the way back we stopped and got a huge amount of natural soda for the reception, from Wild Oats. Today I have to call Cheryl, we have to pick up my dress with it's new zipper, we have to fax Don all our ceremony preferences from the one we picked, we have to go buy food and find coolers and...I haven't written my vows. And I have no idea what to write.
And what's more I become a nervous wreck everytime I think about it and can't think of ANYTHING to say. That's right, folks, *I* can't think of anything to say. I love him, I really and truly believe I'll always love him. We've grown up together since we met in middle school. He's one of the only people I actually, really look up to and admire. I say prayers all the time that we'll both live to grow old together. We laugh every night, we have tickle fights and philosophical conversations and sweet kisses... But what the heck am I supposed to VOW? The truth is the whole thing just makes me feel inferior and inadequate because he can say things like, "I've always loved you and waited for you, and I always will, and there's nothing you can do to mess that up", and my response to that mentally is all this hoohaw about how I broke up with him a bunch of times and had a long relationship with someone else and had to go through a bunch of counseling to get to the point where I don't just accept people walking on me or abusing those I love and I feel like to have boundaries means you can't SAY "I'll love you no matter what", I'm such a headcase that I think things like "I'll always love you unless you molest one of our kids or hit me or or or or, but I also love you because I don't think that stuff would ever happen, so it's all good". Vows those are not. I suck, and I'm crying about it.
And I dread standing in front of 30 or 40 people on video and sobbing my eyes out with a big red swollen nose, too, like I know I will because whether it's the inscription for the (beautiful, I can't stop looking at them everytime I pass the box in the kitchen) rings or the letters he's written me or whatever...he's going to turn me into a basketcase with whatever's he written. Just like he manages to completely surprise me with PERFECT gifts on every. single. occassion. and I have never been able to think of anything without prompting, every surprise gets blown....I start to think I have nothing to offer this man and am only the blessed recipient of his charity.
!
Yes, yes. I cook for him, I bring him blankets when he's sleeping, I understand him and he can't imagine anyone else raising our kids. We share many interests and he thinks I'm hot. I don't have to prove myself, this guy has been in love with me for 12 years and nothing I've ever done has ever messed it up and...I can't deal with having so many eggs in one basket like that. I can't deal with him meaning so much OR with the idea that maybe I could go on eventually without him if something horrible did happen.
I'm going to have to completely dissasociate myself from the entire wedding just to not be balling with snot dripping everywhere the whole time. Just to make it up the aisle.
*Tearing my hair out*
Off I go to tackle my MASSIVE to do list of wedding related items, and/or procrastinate through knitting. Assuming I don't puke.
ETA: It's not vows but I did feel the rush to write a poem for the first time in what may be years. I call it
What is this leap of faith we take,
As if we were not mortal?
Promises made for "forever"
When we have only a while?
My heart breaks for the optimism -
I wilt in this glare of hope!
I wonder how brave I can dare to be
In this one life I have on loan.
Do we really rush through youth -
Maybe thirty years of racing only to
Wile away decades, watching
Out the window as the next run by?
Can it really be, for me personally
Seventy years of skin slowly wrinkled
And stories told of brief and fleeting
Times gone by?
I think that I could savor a century of
Quiet nights, laughing crying kissing nights I
Believe that if we only slip through
Every crack, and chance, and find,
Elusive long life "together" then
I think every minute dream movie talk drive
Would be sweet with your continual awareness;
I've never been able to pick out a gift but in full awareness
I am ready to give my whole one life to you.
