One Week Until I’m Married To the Love of My Life

My goodness, where has the time gone? It seems like not that long ago that I was a just a single girl floating through life, meeting random men who for whatever reason never quite were what I was looking for. I was happy back then to enjoy my solo adventures and spending time with friends and doing my own thing. But I couldn’t be happy with that now. It feels like Alex has become such a part of me that it’s weird to imagine life before him, weird to think I could be content as the person I was before I had found the man who completed me so perfectly.

We were talking about how our prior dating histories and how they had shaped what we were looking for in a spouse. I felt like with each new person I’d find a bit more clarity to what I needed and wanted – like a blurred picture that came a little bit more into focus as I met people and worked out what I liked and didn’t like. And then Alex came along and that picture snapped into focus, and it was him. He was everything I could possibly need and want.

If I start to write all the reasons I love him and how he’s so perfect for me, I’ll find it hard to stop and it will never satisfy me as complete. I leave it to future posts about our life together to focus on pieces of it. Suffice it to say that I’m so proud of him for who he is as an individual – his strength of character, his priorities, and his pursuit of conforming to the man God calls him to be. I’m so blessed with how good he is for me and how well we work together – his strengths balance out my weaknesses, we both want the same things out of life, and he pushes me to be the best I can be. And he’s my best friend – he can make me laugh harder than anyone else can, we can talk endlessly about about anything and everything, we enjoy the same sort of thoughts and activities and adventures and have so much fun just spending time together. I cannot imagine a better man to marry, and I’m going to be so honored and overjoyed to be his wife in just one short week.

It struck me how much I have come to rely on him recently. I was having a down day. In my single days this meant isolating myself in my room, pushing the feelings aside and trying to distract myself with a book or Netflix. If it was a particularly struggling day maybe I’d resort to a blog post to help process through it and trigger some tears. But now I run to him. If I’m frustrated with life, him telling me he loves me suddenly makes the sun shine again. If I’m feeling low-spirited, talking to him can cheer me up. I cried when on the phone with him the other day, and he was there for me. He probably didn’t think much of it, but I’ve not cried in front of anyone for so long – it’s never been easy for me and I thought it never would be. But it was so easy to be that vulnerable with him, and I was so much the better for it. I don’t feel alone when I struggle anymore. I feel like I have a safe haven to run to when life gets hard and that I can process and struggle and be weak with someone and feel loved and supported through it, and it’s amazing.

7 days until the best day of my life.

It’s been a whirlwind few months getting ready for it all. I had a beautiful Bridal Shower thrown for me at church. It was decorated with books and flowers made from pages of stories, had tea and cupcakes, a his and her puzzle game, and wonderful advice from a dear mentor at church. It’s been wonderful to feel all the support and love that has been poured out to Alex and I during this new stage of our lives, even from people who wouldn’t be able to pick him out of the crowd and who I only know from seeing a few times at church. 

I also had a blast of a time at my Bachelorette Party. Jenna knocked it out of the park with planning. Her and me, Kayla, Kathy, Kate, and Lisa went up to Bozeman for the night, where we owned an escape room, got dressed up and went to the restaurant Copper for some amazingly delicious food, hopped around some of the main street bars getting drinks and trying to accomplish a scavenger hunt she had put together for us, and returned to the room to read the strange marriage advice strangers had given us for the hunt and to sit around and laugh and talk and have just the most perfect of evenings enjoying friendship. We went to the Bozeman Hot Springs the next morning to relax after our late night partying, got lunch at Jam! (with an amazing maple latte, too) and made it home before the roads got too bad from all the snow. It’s a wonderful weekend I will always cherish. Having those days to just cut loose and celebrate and have those memories with my friends has been a highlight of this whole wedding process.

I think I’ve just about got the details of actual wedding planning done, I just have a few loose ends to tie up. I left my job on Tuesday – I’ll always remember my time at Associated Employers fondly, they were a wonderful employer for many years – and am enjoying the extra free time to get stuff done, take naps, and spend time with people. I’m in the process of trying to meet one on one with friends and get some good quality time before the craziness of next week and moving to Texas after. I’ve moved out of my apartment, and am floating between my sister’s house in Billings and my dad’s house in Joliet. I thought it would be weirder not having a place to call home, but it really hasn’t been. Every step of closing out my old life reminds me I’m getting closer to entering into my new one. I’m ready for my physical home to finally meet up with where I feel like I belong  – with Alex. He’s felt more like home than anywhere else for some time now, and I’m so so excited to be home in 7 days.

The Surprise Blessing and Importance of Friends: A Year Later – Part III

You can’t replace these amazing, wonderful women

I would be remiss if in this time of recollection and saying the unsaid things that still dwell in my head, I failed to acknowledge the friends that surrounded me in my dark time. I would have told you  before Mom died that I had pretty amazing friends. We had such fun adventures, and we’d talk long and late into the night about all things life. Except maybe Mom, I didn’t really welcome much talk about Mom, I didn’t want to be that openly vulnerable about such things; it was much easier to ignore that it was happening and power on. But they all accepted that and made sure to be good friends, ready if I might need them to lean on. I failed terribly to update them as things progressed. Elizabeth was the only one who I even told about Mom dying. I sent her a quick text to let her know.

My family had the funeral pretty quickly after Mom died. We needed the closure, needed to not live in the nightmare through the long holiday weekend. So I honestly wasn’t sure who’d show up. I didn’t know who even knew it was taking place.

But they all showed up. Elizabeth had let everyone know, and they had all come to be there for me, taking last minute time off of work to be there on a Friday morning. I walked out of the service and was instantly surrounded by Elizabeth, Kayla, Liza, and Kathy, a protective circle against the chaos and grief flowing around me. And by instantly surrounded, I do mean instantly surrounded. Even my family, talking with their own comforters and condolence wishers, have commented to me how I was immediately swarmed by my friends and held tightly in their supportive company.

I was overwhelmed to realize that I didn’t just have great friends, I had the best. I hadn’t asked them to be there for me. Hell, I hadn’t once talked to to Kathy about Mom even being ill. For all I knew she didn’t know at all. Yet I didn’t have to ask them. Each and every one of them was just there for me.

I fell that week, fell hard and fast and crashed into a pit of grief from which I had no choice but to be truly vulnerable and open about it for the first time in my life. It was terrifying. Can you imagine the feeling and blessing of in your darkest moments, breaking into a million lonely pieces and not knowing where to turn, and finding all your friends there to put you back together?

It is not exaggeration to say that it was life changing. I have spoken several times on the blog how I have made strides in being more open and vulnerable this year than I have ever been. I could not have been that way but for the fact that when my hand was forced and I couldn’t hide the pain, I had my peeps to honestly share my struggles with.

It is amazing the difference just knowing I have that love and friendship in my life makes. When I helped Dad to pick out a gravestone, it was inevitable that my day would kinda suck after that. But I held onto the knowledge that I was hanging out with my girls later. We ended up going and getting drinks and running around downtown late at night. Never once did I tell them my activities for the day. Yet the salve of true friendship, of feeling the deep support and love that I knew existed amongst us, healed all my sadness and filled me instead with joy.

Somehow, even with states between us and hardly seeing each other, our friendship has only grown throughout the years. My life would be less complete without Amy.

This post wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Amy, my support from a distance. As I’m someone who processes through writing, and as Amy and I communicate 99% of the time through writing, the poor girl got the brunt of me figuring out the troubles. Her support, strength, wisdom, compassion, empathy, and love were a pillar of support and a lifeline in the dark times following Mom’s death where I’d send her pages of cried over words that I couldn’t express any other way. And she graciously accepted those letters and sent me back words to comfort the wounds.

To all my beautiful, wonderful friends who have pulled me through a tough year, I don’t know what it would have been like without you. You cannot fathom how much I cherish each and every one of you, how much your support has held me up in my dark times, and how much I have needed you in my life. Thank you so much for being the friends I didn’t even think to ask to have, but have somehow been graced to receive. Thank you for the kinds words, and the long hugs, and the nights of just hanging out that you cannot imagine the comfort I found in. You all are amazing, and I love you.