40 Days

I spoke to a particularly enlightening person today about what it means to get married. With 40 days left to go, the wedding is falling into place like I never thought it would. Things that I could never envision before are now clear in my mind and will become a reality on July 14. I have said over and over throughout this process that it's been hard because of the whole "bride" persona. I have been taken over by that persona and sometimes feel I have lost myself in the process. Dishes lay dirty in the sink for days at a time. The laundry piles up. Emails remain unread and unanswered. I am a very anal and obsessive person, and I have had to let all that go and give in to the chaos that is wedding planning. But it's so much more than that: it's MARRIAGE planning. I keep saying that I want my life back, but I keep forgetting that my life probably won't ever be the same again. In 40 days it won't just be my life. It'll be OUR life. Sometimes that scares me. Sometimes I'm elated. But always I am awestruck at the strange way that life can surprise me and how I have changed in ways I never would have foreseen.

This is the first picture Roy and I ever took together, at the end of April 2005. We were at a party, and everything was shiny and new. A little over two years later, the shiny part has mostly worn off and left behind a deep, deep love in its place. I have no idea what I was thinking in this picture, but I look happy. This is something that I want to hold onto forever, for better or for worse.