Because I'll Want to Read This Later

Start.

Stop.

Start again.

Always starting again.

I told JD tonight that this was not the time to be bothering to change our lives.  Our lives are going to change themselves two weeks from today.  Exactly two weeks.

The mental list:

Clean room
Pack stuff
Paint apartment (more and more)
Find more furniture
Make more money
Eat more healthy (aka eat less carbs)
Write in my journal
Read my scriptures more intently
Pray more intently
Do pretty much everything in my life more intently
Finish the video projects I am WAY overdue on
Renew my driver's license that expired over 2 months ago (don't read if you're a cop)
Be a good employee again who isn't constantly stressing about outside-of-work things
Get the car repaired

This list doesn't even include anything from the wedding to-dos (callcaterer.visitreceptioncenterandsetuparrangement.meetwithdecorator.findstaffandcrewfordecorator.
finishdecorations.gotofamilyshower.gotofriendshower.gothroughthetemple.buygarments.
buyamillionmorethingswithnomoney.finishdressandveil....blahblahblahblahblah...)  That is an entirely different story.

But the one thing on my list that has finally boiled to the top?  Writing.  Writing anything.  Why?  Because I'll want to read it later.  Two years from now, I'll look back and wonder, "why can't I remember anything about the weeks leading up to my wedding?"  And then I'll say to myself, "oh yeah.  I was a total stress-case and never took the time to just sit.  Just breath.  Just be."

So here I am.  Sitting.  Breathing.  Being.

Being.

This may not be the time to change my life.  I may be in "bare survival mode" for a reason.  Perhaps it comes with the territory.  Rephrase.  Perhaps, for people like me, it comes with the territory.

But I want to write this to my future self, to remember myself by.

Self,

I want you to remember that the weeks leading up to the wedding got really hard.  There was a lot to do and no time or money.  You felt like you spent all of your time at work, and when you weren't there, you were at home wishing that you had the money and energy to do everything you needed to do to get ready.  JD was hard at work with school, the store, and the mortuary.  You were crying one the phone to him on a regular basis because of the daily mental break-downs.  But remember this:

Remember the time JD held you for hours, massaging your back at intervals because your stomach hurt so bad you couldn't think straight.

Remember the time Mr. and Mrs. Clean *wink* came to your apartment all the way from Spanish Fork to help you paint.

Remember the time the CFO at work reminded you that "family is first" and told you to stop feeling bad that you'd had a lot of wedding stuff to attend to; then gave you a dinosaur chewable-vitamin out of his desk and told you that you should ask for a raise sometime.

Remember the time that "Ambs" and you struck up the inside joke about "Despi" who "drives to Layton from anywhere in the world." and you couldn't stop laughing about it even though no one understood what you were talking about.

Remember the time that JD got sick, and you were able to hold his head in your lap and play with his hair, watching episodes of "The Andy Griffith Show" to help you both get through.

Remember Mom driving perilously in the middle of the night to come help with the invites that were way more complicated than you should have ever let them get.  But you still don't regret them, because you love how they turned out.

Remember Cinni's beautiful photography, and how you were in love with her creative "butt-picture" with the picnic basket and almost used it in the announcements, until you remembered that everyone would judge you if you did that, and probably rightly-so. 

Remember everyone who came together to throw and attend bridal showers, and how JD's grandmother gave you cut-glass dishes that had belonged to her mother.

Remember everyone.  Remember everything.  Somehow save all of these little memories away: the melted wedding veil, the overnight shipping charge for the announcement envelopes, the beautiful ring sitting in the box waiting for JD's hand (and the time that you proposed to him with it, in the kitchen, just to be silly, and he jumped up and down and begged for a closer look), the small bunch of dishes by the door that needs to make its way downstairs for a washing, the feeling of pure euphoria when your best friend sent you her flight itinerary that meant that she was going to be able to make it to the wedding from OH, the piles of antiques and vintage items (collected on date-nights and random DI outings with sister) stacked on the table in the corner of the bedroom, the plethora of scaffolding on the Timpanogos temple (and how the two of you decided to pretend that the temple was being built especially for your wedding, and somehow wasn't going to be complete, but you're so in love you're moving forward anyway), the lunches on Fridays stolen away at Taste of India with Will and anyone else who wants to come and the waitresses there who practically are your best friends by now, the feeling of anticipation, the fear of blowing everything but wanting to move forward anyway, the knowledge that you and JD have everything you need to be brilliant, to make life into what you want it to be.

Remember all of these things.  

This is real life.

This is water.
  
This is love.

                                         ~Me.