I'm Off!

I'm off to go get hitched. I'll see you when I get back, when I'm a *Mrs*!!

Hectic

So it's close, and with the closeness, comes the chaos, I guess. Normal people seem to have totally lost their minds, and a great deal of them seem to have just plain forgotten thsi weddign is about SAM and I. Ha. Which sounds so selfish. But I have come to the realization recently that I won't pu tup with other people's madness. I have enough of my own. And this IS abotu Sam and I. It's about us getting married, not the party or the dresses or who feel swhat abotu whom. We've invited these people, these people we love dearly, to share in that. And becasue of that I feel the right to be a little selfish. A little self-serving. Not bridezilla, but in a "this is our wedding, and this is the way it will be because we want it that way." What's funny, is I've spend a good portion of the past year trying everything in my power to make everyone else happy - assure they are involved, feeling loved and included. I guess now I'm just drawing the line and saying, "now it's our turn."

My friend Joyce says weddings and funerals bring out the crazy in people. And as each day inches past, I'm begining to become more and more sure she's right.

*sigh*

I'm so tired. And I cannot remember the last time I had a whole day where I felt well. It seems every morning I struggle, and every night I collapse.

I should buy stock in pharmacuetical companies.

All I want is to feel good on our wedding day. Not pretend to feel good, which I've gotten so professional at I sometimes can even convince myself, but *actually* feel good. I'm tired. Tired of feeling not well, tired of pretending otherwise. Tired of never having time to just stop.

And now, I must stop one thing. No more whining.

We're SO stylish

Who knew sam and i were so trendy?

http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2005
/10/13/have_a_slice_of_wedding_cupcake.php

A letter to Jamie

This is what I'm imagining - I'm imagining standing in kind of chilly autumn air, behind a big yellow school bus listening to Ryan play whatever beautiful music before the ceremony - trying to be quiet and joking about which one of us may very well trip on our way down the hill. I imagine fixing little Sarah's wings, and trying to pick out your jack in the field. I imagine lots of fire (ha!) and smiling and laughing. I imagine walking down the leaf-strewn, latern-lit aisle with my dad; you and Sarah and Jan and Carrie and Scott and everyone I love most standing there, next to Sam. Waiting right there at the end.

I picture posing (ever so briefly) for photos beforehand, laughing and joking and having a blast - and perhaps driving whomever's job it is to corral us crazy. I imagine looking at those pictures someday, all of you dressed as beautiful and unique as you are and counting myself blessed that these women are in my life.

And yes, the designer in me DOES have visions - but they're simple really. Orange pumpkins and flames. A brilliant sunset; a crowd of flickering candles on the ground and swashes of stars in the sky during our vows. You and the bridesmaids in beautiful black dresses with brilliant, *wild* bouquets. Me in a white (and I still am getting used to this part) long beautiful dress, hair in a ponytail with a large orange lily . . .even a veil, but a short sassy one. A bouquet like yours, but white with feathers and berries sticking out all crazy-like.

But all the visuals? They center around one thing - looking over at you in one off-moment and having both of us smile - the kind of smile that comes when you want to wrap up the moment in the most precious silk and keep it uncreased and clear forever. The kind of smile that says I feel beautiful, this is beautiful - I'm so glad we're all here, together.

That's the most important part of my vision.

That and the hundreds of pumpkins.

One day, One month away

Today seems like a big day, or rather that it should be.

I have officially turned 31. An age at which I can no longer deny I have entered a new decade. I am no longer in my twenties or so close it doesn't really matter. Now, there's no turning back.

And in exactly one month I shall be getting married to the most wonderful, generous, loving, and infuriating man I know.

And of the two items, only the latter truly matters to me. I have found it strange all day to be receiving happy birthdays and emailed cards and phone calls filled with good wishes. Which, if you know me at all, is odd for me. I am the girl who has traditionally had a birthday MONTH. Who arranges elaborate get togethers for HERSELF and drags her friends, and whomever's closest more than likely, into one long arduous celebration of, well, herself.

I love birthdays. I love that everyone gets one day where they're are most important and everyone gets to tell them how much they are loved.

And I am a little shocked at myself for this year. Because, honestly, my birthday doesn't seem important. Not like usual, not even in the same universe as usual.

Because right now? I am on pins and needles with anticipation of our marriage. That soon, in a mere month, I will be someone's wife. Someone's partner. We will be a family. No greater, I guess, than we are now. But different. And I can feel the difference sneaking in. Drifting toward me from the edges of our life. And I like how it feels.

This birthday? It doesn't make me feel different, not in any lasting or revolutionary way. But the wedding, and all it means, all it encompasses? It does. And somehow, that weighs more inside me right now. I can't let go of it, I can't look away. I can just look forward, forward, forward.

That's Us.

We're them. We're everything we like about them and not anything we don't.

We're the quirky and kind, the handsome and pretty, the sarcastic comment and embarrassed giggle.

I found myself doing this constantly. Finding couples I loved and thinking "we're them." In a million ways. His personalized commentary; her sigh of his name. Her empassioned torrents; his patient and supportive hand on her knee. I would listen to songs and think - "us." I would horde them in fact, in playlist after playlist. Listening to them repeatedly. "Us." "He and I." "We."

It was like I needed comfirmation that this was real. That it wouldn't go away, that it wasn't made up. Because it was exactly what I would make up, if I could. It was all too perfect in a way. Maybe not perfect - but real. Too tangible. Solid. Beautiful in that way imperfect things are. In the way worn wood on a banister feels like coming home. I was searching for evidence that this was what I thought it was. What it could be. What I hoped for it to be.

And then I realized the evidence wasn't coming. Because it *was* real. Because it was he and I, and no one else. And we are, yes, a million lyrics of a million songs. And slight reflections of those we love most, cracked mirrored images of what I would find in books and papers. But we're so much more. He is so much more.

And I realized, we're writing those songs, we're creating those images. And I no longer need confirmation it's real, or permanent. Because I know it. I know it in a way I've never known anything in my life. And in itself that is scary and wonderful and amazing.

But I still listen to those songs on repeat, I still glance twice at those couples. I guess it's my way of runing my hand over the bannister, feeling that nostalgic overwhelming reminisce again and again.

I'm home. I'm home. I'm home.

at last

So this morning, mustering all my i'm-such-a-baby-courage I went to talk to my specialist about my recent CT scans. Sam had to stay at work becasue we're leaving early this afternoon to go home to

GET OUR MARRIAGE LICENSE (but that's another entry)

So I was on my own. As I have had numerous, count them, NUMEROUS medical tests all on my lonesome these last few years - suddenly now that there is someone who is practically obligated to hold my hand and be all logical and calm on my behalf . . . I have become nothing short of a raving lunatic. I'm am apparently no longer equipped to handle medical emergencies. This I have proven. I have spent the last couple weeks bursting into tears over NOTHING. Nothing, people. Me, sobbing at my desk at work, crying uncontrollably on the couch at home. I follow no social norms anymore. I am apparently a fragile delicate emotional woman who cannot remain calm under any circumstances anymore.

Though I will say that after two weeks of playing the WHAT THE HELL IS GROWING IN MY HEAD, near my *eyes* and BRAIN no less, I'd like to think my recent behavior is somewhat acceptable, or at the least, excusable.

So, I go to see the specialist. He's the best in the city and what's more, totally cool. And very very very tolerant of my child-like phobias. He sticks stuff up my nose, takes a sonogram of my ears, reviews my blood tests and scans - and, are you ready? This 50 year old Indian man HUGS me and says "It's not a tumor." Ha! A joke! So clever! It's the same joke I've been telling! Then he laughs a little and says, well, technially it is. But nothing scary. Whatever, I think. The scary was what I was worried about. But even more importantly, after lots of medical explanation and jib jibe, and some FREE DRUGS he tells me he doesn't think I need surgery.

Let me say that again.

No Surgery.

DEAR LORD, THANK YOU. So, if I get this madness again, surgery. But for now, nothing. Some medicine, some taking care of myself, some being careful when I fly. But no cutting me open and digging around. Which is I really wanted. I can deal with being able to fly now, just not the whole opening somehow of my head and scraping off of my sinuses.

So I'm headed home today. To Kansas. All in one piece and very very happy about it.

I like for you to be still

" . . .my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine . . ."

I always loved Pablo Neruda. I thought he had the most amazing way of painting pictures with words. He entranced me, and all of his poems had a slow, languishing pace to them that drew me in. They were like brandy, warming me, slowly reaching my fingertips.

What I did not understand, is how they would affect me after I had met Sam. How the words would somehow carry more weight. And now I realize, as trite as it is, my whole world has changed. Songs are different, movies - a million things. I no longer see things through just my perspective, just my eyes. My world is different. On even the simplest levels. And all of it, each small shift - has been for the better.

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

that this: where I do not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep."

Repeating Myself

I'm going to repost some of my posts from my older blog (livejournal). Just to keep them where I'm at. They're important to my story, to me, and I want them with me. So forgive me if you've already read them . . . . I promise there will only be a few. You'll find them below . . . marked with the date I originally posted them.

A Picture Share!

Test

A Picture Share!

I'm here now.

After all the research I had to do at work, I decided I'd like to host my blog here. I won't promise good writing or interesting stories (and in fact, I can promise for the next few months it shall be overrun with wedding posts). But, well, it's my life. Not interesting or exciting, but mine to tell.

And this is where I shall start.

30 and getting Married Far Away

I spent the weekend, well, most of it, with a group of girls getting married not long after myself. I listened to their stories regaling trips to salons and to hairdressers. Stories of crowded showers and bouquets of ribbons.

And I realized I haven't really had all that, all that "wedding stuff." When I went to try on my dress, I was by myself in the midst of a giant salon filled with young brides and their mothers and their friends, all fawning over everything they tried on and oohing and ahhing every time the dressing room curtain was pulled back. They all dabbed tears away when the veil was put on and they all giggled and hovered together as they left, receipts and swatches in hand.

Not my experience.

And I guess this is what it means to be 30 and getting married, and not 22. My best friends aren't all around me giggling and trying on insane dresses and veils. We're not all crowding into salons and drinking wine and fawning over each other. There are no surprise showers, no dates for lunches to talk about flowers, no one to tell me how my dress looks, or if the red of my hair is a bit too obnoxious. I have done the majority of my stuff without the girls I love best.

But don't get me wrong. They're at the other end of the phone, online, or in the mail - listening to me plan and scheme and try to maintain some sort of perspective - and because of them. I keep sane somehow. I *will* get to have the wedding I always wanted. Not becasue of a shower or a lunch or any silly old thing. But because I have the type of best friends who email me to remind me to sleep enough and eat carrots. Who know the change of seasons always makes me long for a cigarette, and to remind me to skip that small tradition. Who offer to make me jewelry and call me throughout the day as they go shopping for their bridesmaid dress. They send me photos of their lives and their babies. They listen, ever patiently while I worry and exclaim and dream at the the end of their phone.

Because they are not here, they constantly make sure I know they are not far. They examine pictures of bouquets I like, they critique my dress and then send me scathing remarks about the seamstress who tells me "orange and white are awful." They are the best friends I could ask for - the best 'maids ever. Both with lives of their own, both starting families, both with their own huge events of 2005.

But what they give me is more than a shower or a lunch or a trip to try on dresses. They give me their undying support, their straight unfaltering opinions, their sarcastic remarks, their hilarious observations, and their friendship. What they have always given me, in fact. And I guess that's why they are who they are in my life. They are not my bridesmaids out of obligation or return. They are my best friends, standing beside me soon for the most important moment of my life. And til then, they are doing what they always have done - being my best friends. Being my sisters. Being my sanity.

I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Part 3: Almost done, I promise

The next time I saw him, he was fresh from Italy and full of fantastic stories.

I had casually invited him to my and my best friend's annual Birthday Bash in Kansas City, assuming he was like most of our mutual friends and would more than likely NOT to show up to a party that required he drive hours to get to.

I was gravely mistaken. He showed up, late into the night, and we danced and laughed and, as would become habit - stood in the parking lot talking for hours - until I was forced to drive away, only because I had a mere four hours before getting on a plane to LA.

We spent the next few weeks talking on the phone for hours at a time and, eventually, went somewhere just the two of us. It wasn't a date, more like friends getting together to do something, but I still pulled out all the stops when getting ready. We saw "They Might be Giants" play and had a downright fun time doing it. I saved my ticket to the show, slipping it into a box I where I kept things not to lose.

It's here, though, where our story goes astray. I mentioned we went out twice, didn't I? Well we did. But alas, there was a fateful weekend in between. One in which I went to NYC, got accepted into grad school, and began plans to move far far away from Kansas and all it contained.

And that included, in my mind, this new great guy I loved hanging out with. I had decided when I went, I would GO. None of this horsing around or pining for home.

Our second date was uncomfortable. We both initially thought we had been stood up, mis-communicating about where we would meet. It was the last time I saw him, or would talk to him for months. I stopped returning his phone calls, stopped answering the phone, really. In my mind I had already moved, and I was as good as two thousand miles away.

But I saw him one last time before I left for NYC. And at 4am in an empty parking lot in Overland Park, offered out another casual invitation that would, a mere year later, change both our lives.

Part 2

My job was to take the photos. The evidence of this misplaced task was later revealed - as the photos, starting off clear and well composed, slowly got more blurred and haphazard as the day wore on. Alas, champagne is *not* the ultimate photographer's companion.

But that day was sunny and bright, and happiness was shining from all our faces. Joe and Carrie were the first of "us" to get married, and it seemed in no small way they were guaranteeing all of us a chance at forever. That somehow, their promise of eternity was going to carry through to all our friendships. We were jubilant.

I had followed everyone around taking snapshots until I was sure the groom might smack me. I decided to go ahead and sit down, claim my good spot on the end of a pew, to get everyone One.More.Time. as they stepped down the aisle.

Sam, one of the groomsman, stopped me halfway down the aisle - insisting I be escorted like everyone else. More specifically that he escort me, as it was his "duty of the day." As we walked back to the beginning and started once more down the aisle, the videographer asked us to stand in for the couple.

"Could you guys come here for a second? Sam, stand here. Misty, walk down the aisle like you're the bride . . .yeah, that's it. Now could you stand together here for a moment while I set up the shot?"

I remember there being sarcastic vows and faces made. I remember sauntering innapropriately down the aisle, and Sam taking my hands in earnest joking fashion. I don't remember now exactly what we said. I remember we had fun with it and laughed. How we joked we were really married for months later.

I never did get my proper escort down the aisle. But that will come a mere six months from now, and Sam will be waiting at the end, just has he was all those four years ago.

Only I'm sure this time, I will remember what we say.

Part 1:

I knew him only as someone everyone else knew. He was around when I was gone, he was in Kansas when I was in Florida . . . Our paths never quite crossed. I heard tell, though. I'd come back and my friends would be hilariously doing what they did best, finding ways to set him up, friends he would love . . .I met him as the guy they loved and wanted their friends to date. I thought that was sweet. I had no interest in being that friend.

Our first "real" meeting was at a James Taylor concert. We all met and then reconvened at my house to save everyone long drives home. I remember pointing to my shag rug on the carpet and introducing him to his bed for the night. And then, not long after, retiring to my room - door shut - and throwing a pillow over my head while trying desperately to get some sleep. I had work in the morning.

The next I saw him we got married.

For the first time.