The day before the wedding.

We just got back from the rehearsal dinner, and since everyone was doing so much running around today and so much planning and organizing and cooking and transporting... we all sort of went our separate ways.

Not that I should be sad: I see these people a lot, and I'm thankful for that.

It's just that when this many people are in one place together for a while, I feel like I want to hang out every night, because that's just usually what we do. And tonight we're not.

Several people are going to bed already to get up early and prepare for the wedding at the church. Other people are still up but watching a horror movie, which doesn't sound appealing to me (besides the being-with-people part). Still others are going on walks, or packing for their honeymoon, or playing XBox. But we are all separate, and for some reason that makes me sad.

I think I know, however, what is really gnawing at my heart is the fact that after this, yet another friend reunion is over, and Katie and Jesse will be gone for three weeks on their honeymoon. I understand the wedding will be over and people need to leave. I understand that the couple will be on a honeymoon because that's just what happens. But a large part of me does not want any of this to happen.

You could call that feeling selfish, but I'm starting to think it has a lot more to do with the human need for longing and attachment and companionship. I know I can "survive" three weeks without my very good friends Katie and Jesse, because it's not like I'll be completely without friends. I have Nick to be with, and my sister for about another week. I also have a new task to get used to: a job. However, there will be those nights during the next three weeks that I will severely miss hanging out with Katie and Jesse, and wishing they were here so Nick and I could socialize with them.

I used to think I was very independent, and that I didn't need anyone or friends as often as other people did. I used to follow these beliefs, and often stayed home nights instead of being with friends. This solely independent mentality has slowly dwindled over the past several years, as I realize now that I need not just a husband, but close friends to keep me happy, to keep me being who I am: a unique individual who is still independent in one sense, but one who embraces her independence in light of her surrounding family and friends.

I am a social being, and I need social contact. So how do I deal with the fact that my social contact is about to dwindle to a smaller size than I want it to be?

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The time where I didn't write.

I made it two weeks. And then I forgot.

Tuesday, the day I should have posted to keep up my streak, contained so much that I forgot to blog. I went shopping with girl friends, went to Sioux Falls with my husband, picked up my sister from the airport, and watched Transformers at the midnight showing.

Wednesday, which at this point was yesterday, the business continued as I helped set up for Katie's bachelorette party, as well as the karaoke party. Those events occurred about six hours and 40 minutes ago. Which means that it is now 3:40 a.m. on Thursday, June 25.

I really should go to bed, but I happen to not be at my house, and I happen to want to stay up just a little bit longer yet as I am not the one getting married and the one without the job (just yet). However, that's incredibly selfish of me as Katie needs lots of help in the morning. I know that I have been railing on those who have not helped Katie enough for this wedding, so I shouldn't become a hypocrite at this point.

But at this point, maybe I should go home and sleep. I can barely think anymore. I can barely type correctly. And for an English major that means that I either need sleep or a serious slap on the head.

I vote for sleep.

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The hecticness that comes with a wedding week.

I am currently at my dear friend Katie's house, helping sort out all her wedding paraphenelia so that she can finally start to get everything together for every event leading up to and including her wedding. It's really very packed and busy at Katie's place as there are currently seven of us here including Katie preparing, polishing, cleaning, organizing, sorting, planning, and more. So I am really only taking a break because I promised myself as a writer that I would blog every day.

So far I haven't broken that promise!

I got out of the car after arriving at Katie's house, and I thought back to the time that Katie's sister Trish got married. I remember how busy that week was, too, as we had to gather everything together and all hang out in Omaha for a week to help out and attend/be in the wedding. I then remembered my wedding week and how I was only happy because people started to show up, all my friends and family, and Nick, of course. My wedding week was stressful for me, and incredibly scary in a certain sense, but I was glad to have loved ones around me. At the moment, I keep having random memories float up from the bottom of my mind about my wedding as I help Katie sort candles and figure out decorations. Even though I'm not making the decisions and these are not my colors, I remember distinctly when I was organizing my candles and figuring out which color lights should go with which color ribbon.

Then I realized that people arrived today for the wedding, more friends and family for Katie's wedding, and I got giddy for her. I had my special day, and though there were things that I wish I could've changed and there are things I'll never forget, I'm always excited to see what other people are going through, what they choose, what they are doing, and how everyone tries to pitch in to help (well, the majority of people, anyway).

I'm getting very excited for Katie and Jesse. It doesn't seem like this is the wedding week yet. But it is.

Hang on for the ride.

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The achings of the heart.

My heart aches in a way that is fortunately not cliché. I am not hopelessly in love (in love, yes, but not hopelessly or as ridiculously as people in romantic comedies). I am not grieving. I am not yearning. I am not enraged. I am simply living.

There is so much on my plate right now that my heart literally aches from the pressure and confusion of it all. I am finding it hard to organize my thoughts and actions and obligations at this point. Here's a short list of some of the things I'm mulling over:

1. bathroom needs to be cleaned
2. floors need to be mopped
3. apartment needs to be dusted
4. tablecloth and towels need to be washed
5. purchases need to be returned to Sioux Falls
6. purchases need to be made in Sioux Falls
7. plans need to be made to do something fun with Nick tomorrow
8. people need to be contacted about our interest in moving to Colorado
9. my resume needs to be edited
10. I need to keep uploading files back onto my laptop
11. I want a good storm, for Pete's sake
12. I want to figure out what I want to do for grad school and where I'll go
13. I want a job that I enjoy at least the majority of the time
14. four papers need to be sent to the English department
15. Volkers really needs me to start transcription work, like now
16. thank-you notes need to be written for wedding gifts (I feel SO guilty about this one...)
17. Katie and Jesse's wedding and all the events surrounding it
18. recipes need to be copied onto recipe cards
19. important papers need to be organized and filed into our new file box
20. I still need to call my old co-worker Jen back

And the list continues. Who would have thought that all of this would bugged me? I know that I've handled things like this before during school, and I'm surprised I'm so annoyed by it right now and I wasn't necessarily all the time when it happened during college. And I wonder why that is.

I know for sure I have to learn to be content more, and grow closer to God. I think my spiritual side has slackened somewhat as of late, and I know how to fix it from my end, but it's always just so hard to take that one step towards God, because He knows all and that seems to scare the shit out of me.

I think I lied at the beginning of this post. Maybe my heart actually is aching in a cliché manner: I am yearning for many things.

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The decisions we make.

Today seemed to present a lot of things to think about. The first, and least important, of these things was how to create and put together rehearsal dinner invitations for my dear friends' wedding. Katie gave us all her scrapbooking items to use, and said we did not need to have a specific format to any of the invites, and that we could create unique, random invites at our own whim, as long as they provided all the information needed to guests and were, um... decent. (If you receive the rehearsal dinner invite with the lift-up wedding dress skirt, know it was not me.)

As a relatively artistic and creative person, I happen to put a lot of thought into whatever creative endeavours are put before me. If there are lots of options for creativity, I tend to think of many ideas all at once and must literally write things down in order of how I thought of them if I do not want to forget what I thought of in the first place. In this case, I simply grabbed whatever scrapbook item inspired me to create something and put those items in order of inspiration. Sometimes this created havoc as other people needed the stickers I'd placed on my space of the floor, or someone else was using the silver pen I needed to finish my next-in-line invite. However, I did not have to agonize too much as all of us working on creating invitations are good friends and happen to be very polite. In addition, I did not have to put too much thought into my creations: I simply had to decide what type of invitation I wanted to make next (should I make a cute one? A simple one? An elegant one? A witty one?).

Those minor decisions behind me, I was next faced with the issue of weddings themselves. I tend to look only at the things that I would have changed in my wedding, rather than focus on the fact that I even had a beautiful wedding and am now married (my patient husband often reminds me of this fact with a slight hint of agitation in his voice). Once Katie and Jesse are married, I would not have to "worry" about what I would have done differently at my wedding except for the fact that our other good friend is now also engaged and is starting to plan her wedding.

I have come to realize I adore wedding planning. I had a blast with it up until two months before my wedding, at which point I was apart from Nick and all my friends and simply wanted my wedding day to come so I could see everyone again. I realize that I could become a wedding planner quite easily if the market called for it in the area I'm living in, and if I worked hard to familiarize myself with the industry of weddings and wedding planning themselves. Though I do believe it's sad that weddings are no longer ceremonies of lifetime promises but rather a show of who has enough money to afford the newest, trendiest, and "best" wedding on the market, I have also come to realize that this very materialistic and selfish view of weddings has rubbed off on me for whatever reason; I tend to "size up" my wedding to everyone else's, which is absolutely debasing to my own special day as well as to other's. So another decision I had to make tonight was not to allow myself to analyze my friend's ring, or her colors, or her table setting choices. It was hard, but I eventually remember that I am indeed married, and that is, after all, the entire point of a wedding.

Finally, I was reminded of my future, and how many decisions are on my doorstep. I have a job interview on Monday for a teaching position here in Iowa, I have some connections in Colorado Springs that may turn out to be some good leads, I want to go to graduate school, and I also am interested in going overseas to teach English. All sound appealing, but none sound final. A few weeks ago, I had no job opportunities at all and suddenly I am now presented with at least three different possibilities. Now I have to figure out what I want.

What do I want? What do I put my heart and soul into? I do not want to leave my friends in Iowa just yet; Nick and I had tentatively planned on staying here another year partly because of our friends and partly because of our cheap living situation, both cons that we would not find in many other parts of the States or world. So this tells me I must throw my effort towards impressing my interviewer on Monday so I get that job and we stay here for a bit yet. But Nick and I adore Colorado Springs and the beauty of that location, so do I actually search actively for a good job there and, upon receiving one, move? We would be closer to both our families, but we'd be away from friends. And what about grad school? I love learning so much that I want to go to grad school, but for what... I'm not sure yet. I don't really know what I want to study more in-depth, or what the rest of my life should look like career-wise. And what about teaching in another country? A phenomenal experience that can never be replicated, but where? Nick tends to distrust the safety of all Asian countries, but those are the only places I could get a job for sure.

I didn't think I'd have so many decisions to think about and make tonight, and on such a wide scale of importance, starting with the relatively minor task of creating rehearsal dinner invitations and ending with the daunting issue of my future. I suppose this is what comes of being an adult, or a human, for that matter. Fortunately, I found that in this entire decision-oriented night that I had three things to think about, and I was always taught in my Rhetoric class in high school that in order to have a solid argument or apology, you need to have three fully-developed points. Anything less is detrimental to your position, anything more is usually extravagent and unnecessary. So I take comfort in the fact that I had exactly three decisions to think about. Maybe that means I'm still solid.

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