Fairytales never resemble reality.

When I was younger then I am today I day dreamed of my wedding. I always pictured that my fiancé would be as excited about it as I was. He would be into taking pictures together and planning things out. I pictured him making decisions and wanting to do everything together. Venue shopping, food tasting, haggling. Funny thing is? I never really dated any guys that fit that mold. 

And now, today, being engaged as I am I still don't have that guy. My fiancé is great but he's the finance guru. He's the love of my life that wants to bend over backwards for me while not breaking the bank. He's the type of guy who, though he wants to get married, complains about every little detail. How many people we're inviting, how much it's all going to cost, how annoying it is and how it's so much like work, how we should just elope. 

Now let me be real with you for a moment here, being engaged is tuff. There are the small disagreements turned arguments, the stress of feeling like you will never figure things out, worrying that what you want won't be what your fiancé wants, rethinking it all in your head and honestly considering saying screw it and not doing anything at all.

Now I'm not saying being engaged is not exciting. I do love it. I love having a fiancé and being away from him always sucks. However when we are together, quite frankly, there are more enjoyable things to do then stress about a wedding.

Which is probably why, three months in, and we haven't made any real decision beside colors. So what are you to do when it all feels like just a little too much?

The fiancé and I are going to-hopefully- go to the SNL exhibition on Friday and then we have made plans to really make some decisions on Sunday.

Thing is, I have been waiting my whole life for this. For the planning, for the wedding, mostly for everything that comes with it. Being a wife and living with my husband. But when you are finally in it sometimes things just don't equal up to what you imagined. Now it's a good thing because most of what you dreamed of was probably a tad unrealistic but it's also slightly earth shattering when you realize it. When you are face to face with your gift horse and you have no idea how to ride it.

I realize that I don't really know what I want. And the things I do want are pretty expensive and out of budget. Also seeing as my fiancé is very cost conscious I find myself wondering if I skipped it would I ever miss it?

But I know I would. That day doesn't mean to me what it means to a lot of other people. It's not about status or image. It's not about showing up anyone or living out some fantasy I've had since I was a kid. It's about being with the ones I love. It's about making a pact and promise to the man I want to spend the rest of my life with in front of all those close to us. It's about celebrating our love with all our friends and families and just having a great big party.

After 7 years, after all the ups and downs and twists and turns. After all the obstacles and issues we have overcome in choosing to love and be with one another. This is our moment. And I for one think we deserve it. No matter what we end up deciding, no matter how much the day ends up resembling or not resembling what I'd imagined, no matter how much it actually takes out of us. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that this is the man I want to spend my life with. My partner, my best friend, my one and only. And in the end, even with all the stress of it all, I think it will be worth it. By leaps and bounds.

For the fun of it. A day in the life of my hair.

My hair right when I woke up. I had washed and blow dried it the night before but this is what it looked like when I woke up. 

I decided it need to be straighted. So I did that.

Then I went to walk the dog and was greeted by this as I walked out the door:

Rainy day central. So of course when I came back from walking the dog. 

Then it was back outside to head to work. Where I saw a rainbow. 

And then I descended into the subway which was muggy as all hell.

By the time I got to work and and sat for breakfast I had this going on.

So I ran some water through it.

Much better. But then the day went on. This is mid afternoon. Once the water dried and my hair settled.

And then of course end of day came. And the rain hadn't stopped. Here's me on the bus.

And then I went out for drinks with a friend so I had to make it look a bit more kept.

Walking home from the night it looked like this.

And of course after getting home pre shower it had grown a sort of volume unknown to man.

And post shower before bed this is the last way it decided to lay. 

Such are the trails and tribulations of curly hair and when I wake up the next morning it's starts again...

You’re Engaged…Now What?

So it’s officially been a little over 2 months that we have been engaged. I don’t know what I originally imagined it to be like. However I can tell you for certain it fills you with so many different emotions. First there is this insane sort of happiness. Like an eternal giddiness with life and the fiancé. But then there is also this fear. It’s not quite deep rooted, just sort of coating the surface at times. I’m left suddenly nervous and a tad anxious. Can I actually do this? Will I be a good wife? What if I fail at it? What if a suck at being a mother? What if I can’t hack it?

Those moments are scary and though I don’t often share them, when I do, the fiancé always reassures me that we will succeed. That we will make the best out of what life has given us and we will ride this wave together. We have been through so much. And through it all, good and bad we have stood together and overcome.

Then of course there is the slight stress of planning this event with all that it entails. Who to invite, who you have to exclude, where the money will come from, where you are to live. All these unknowns could drown you if you allow them too. The fiancé tends to over stress it all. I try to bring him back around to me. We are not the type of people who will plan outside our means. Nor are we the type that care about every little minute detail.

It has caused much discussion among friends, family and the odd stranger. They don’t understand why we haven’t posted it all over social media. (A personal decision for us) They don’t understand how we don’t have a specific date chosen. Don’t understand how I’m not speaking about the upcoming nuptials with every breath I take and shimmering eyes filled with all the wonder I can imagine. I have even been told that what they were getting from me was that I didn’t want a wedding at all because I didn’t care about what venue or time of year the wedding occurred.

What they don’t seem to understand, what a lot of people don’t seem to understand is my entire life I have had one serious goal. Judge me however you will after my next comment, but all I’ve ever wanted in life was to be a wife and a mother. I may have written about this before but I can’t quite recall so maybe you can’t either. But I had always wanted to be married with children by now. I had a close moment there in college with my first love but it was a difficult and fairly toxic relationship that we could just never make work. No matter how much we desired to make it so. So for me, after living through all that. After meeting my fiancé, my best friend and partner, after fighting tooth and nail for this relationship and growing besides this person that I couldn’t even see myself living without, the wedding just doesn’t matter to me as much as the marriage does. As much as the act of promising ourselves to one another in front of all our friends and family.

If you are engaged, have been engaged or are on the path to getting engaged I can tell you, at least from what I have encountered, everyone wants to discuss and give you advice about the wedding. What you should or shouldn’t do. How much you should actually spend, who to invite or not invite, how to handle the actual day, or what the actual day should be like. Very few and I mean a rare few will actually want or give you advice about the actual MARRIAGE. Which boggles my mind. That is the most important part of the day. Or at least it should be. It will be. For me.

Another difficult part of being engaged at the moment is that though the fiancé and I have been together for 7 years (this past 30^th of august) he didn’t propose to me until now. This unfortunately for us comes a few months after my cousin proposed to his fiancé. The mother of his two children, who he has been with for 5 years now. Also having always wanted a fall wedding we are stuck with the fact that my cousin and his fiancé have already picked Autumn for their wedding. In 2016.

So now I am suck feeling quite at war with myself. I don’t want either wedding to be less special or less important to either of us. I don’t want to land a date before them and seem like I’m attempting to beat them. I don’t want to pick a date directly after them and seem second fiddle. Then you have two bridal showers, and to boot I’m one of her bridesmaids. So that means I have to plan my own wedding while making myself present for her and all the planning of her wedding. And I want to be included in her wedding but that is now an added stress on my plate because it cuts into the cost of my budget out of my own wedding. Then there is the fact that having been in a relationship with my fiancé for as long as I have I have already imagined my procession down the aisle. I have always imagined it including my two younger cousins as my flower girls and my cousin and his fiancé’s sons as my ring bearers. Exactly what she has also recently decided.  

So honestly it does sometimes hurt my heart. Knowing that they already have their life together and my fiancé and I haven’t even begun ours and the possibility of having to push that life further behind to not step on toes gets a bit overwhelming. Overwhelming to the point sometimes of making me not even want to have a wedding. That coupled with the fiancés worries about finances and knowing I don’t have as much to input into the wedding as he will… well sometimes it seeps into me and makes my stomach turn.

I try to be positive. Because this is the Man I want to spend my life with. And if there is something I have learned from this life it is that I never get what I want. What I get is everything. It’s amazing and I couldn’t be more grateful but it’s never what I planned or imagined. Maybe that is a good thing…but sometimes it does seem as if things in life are against me. I know here come little miss melodrama, who let her in? We don’t want what she is selling.

I know.

Sometimes it just feels nice to let the bitter sink into your tongue. Let it soak all of you and allow yourself to wallow in it. I’m not doing that now though, or today. Also I’ve been determined to not do it at all in general anymore.

However there are all those obstacles. Obstacles on top of trying to figure out what to do living situation wise, as well as finding time to actually do any planning. We’ve talked about some things. Chosen our colors and such but nothing finite and most specifically nothing definite. No venue or date. Haven’t even nailed down guest lists. I also want to do professional photos. Have always wanted engagement photos to put on the save the dates and such but that is a task as well. Finding the time and the money, let alone the photographer. The fiancé is also not really the excited ‘let’s do it all type’. I’m aware some of you don’t think that guy exists but I promise you he does. I’ve seen him, heard about him and interacted with such a man. A man who has ideas about his own wedding and wants to plan fun or crazy things, who is excited about getting to take photos with the one he loves. Anyway that Man is not the guy I am marrying so I guess getting super pumped to go forward with planning the wedding is a bit difficult. Not that the fiancé isn’t happy or excited to be engaged he is…though lately I think the stress has been eating at him a tad because he’s been a bit curt. Never the less engagements can be wonderful. Mine definitely has been, obstacles and all.

As dreary as this post seemed to get at the end there, I really am beyond excited to be engaged to the love of my life. And we will - one of these days - actually manage to plan some things out. I think we are just going to let the venue we book dictate our wedding date. I think we shall just pick from whatever days they have available and essentially just let the universe decide. I mean we got engaged in outer space so who better then to hand the reigns over to. Anyway I am off for the night, remember:

“Anyone can give up, it’s the easiest thing to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that’s true strength.” ~Anonymous