Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Being Busy

What does getting ready for a wedding ceremony and party mean?

It means being elated. It means finding just the right things to delight ourselves and our family and friends. It means getting set for a fresh start and loving the thought and feeling of all that...

It also means making lists, freaking out when you realize that the street number on the invites somehow isn't correct (!), hoping and praying.

It means that when the dryer buzzes, I am actually relieved that the clothes aren't dry yet and that I can put them on another light dry cycle instead of folding. (This gives me the time to write here...)

I thought all the invites were out, but a conversation with Steinvic's Mom prompted me to send out a dozen more tonight.

Of course, I didn't have any more envelopes, so I headed up to Michaels to buy up what they had - two packets of our envelopes - just enough!

An hour later, I can check one more thing off the list.

But you know what? I'm so excited and happy...I hope that everyone we've invited can come and celebrate with us.

Six years of commuting, a big move to combine our homes, learning to live together - Steinvic's constant calm and my waves of spaz - it's all coming to a gorgeous place...our marriage.

Meanwhile, work is relentless. Man, I am GRATEFUL for my job, but I can't even take lunch these days. I used to keep trucking through lunch semi-voluntarily, but now it's a have-to...lunchtime isn't about reading a little junk online and then working more. It's all about the hustle and using that extra hour to try to get caught up.

So...right now, I'm having a glass of wine, listening to the dryer tumble sounds behind the television sounds, missing Steinvic (it's a Columbus night) and thanking my stars for the very wonderful busy life I have.

We have.

Monday, September 20, 2010

One Month From Today...

...I will marry the love of my life!

Sorry I've been so scarce. We work, we run around, we try to have some us time, and we run some more. I address, we search, we order...we're finalizing the details and ready to mail out invites to our "wedding party" a few weeks after the big day.

I've never had so much fun planning anything, knowing that it will be a true, stress free celebration of our marriage.

More tomorrow, when I have more minutes!

Friday, September 10, 2010

Odds and Ends...

I feel Fall. When I wake up in the morning, I don't want to move. I hit snooze at least two or three times...I slam off the "big alarm," and pull the cell phone from the night stand and tuck it beneath my arm. The cell phone has my back up alarm set on low. I curl back into Steinvic's arms and doze easily.

When I finally get out of bed, it's still dark. And when I finally finish getting ready and head out for the car, it's cool out - no humidity to warn me about how hot it will grow during the day.

I feel changes happening in the weather, and I feel changes happening in me. It's an unwinding and a rewinding and a gathering of all those loose strings into something else...trying to keep this loop from tangling with that one.

When I was a kid, I can remember my Dad cutting open a neighbor's stray golf ball and giving it to me to unravel while I sat on the cool garage floor. I unwound the rubberbandish insides carefully at first, then faster and faster. The closer I got to the center, the more quickly that little ball unravelled, bouncing, sporadically and drunkenly away from me and against the garage wall. Did you ever do that...unwind the insides of a golf ball?

Anyway, I feel kind of like that ball. Not that I'm coming apart, or like someone is unwinding me, but more like I've been fiestily working my own way down to that little ball in the center. (Which, by the way, my Dad told me was full of Castor Oil. I have no idea if it's true.) I can't say I've been pleasant to be around...I've been emotional and sensitive. And scared. I think "scared" for me comes out in strange, unappealing ways.

Thursday, I was running later to leave work than I'd planned to. See...I thought I'd go to Clifton tonight to go into some of the jewelry stores there to look for wedding jewelry. (I'm not after anything fancy...something unique, green, sterling and me. Celtic would be great.) And I felt so overwhelmed at work that afternoon and so rushed at the end of the day that I almost didn't go.
But then I thought, why am I so hurried? Steinvic was in Columbus overnight, and he would have said, "just go!" And so I went.

I took the long way, winding my way downtown the way my Grandma had taught me - all backroads. I took my time and visited each store. I smelled all the smells I remembered smelling when I lived in Clifton and walked along Ludlow all the time. I looked at the beautiful jewelry (and hats and shoes and soaps and paper) and thought about how much I'd changed - how my life had changed - in the years since I'd been there. And as I headed back toward my car (I couldn't make a decision on the jewelry tonight, though there are three contenders) I noticed that while a lot of my surroundings were familiar, they looked different.

Those shops and restaurants and signs peppering the Gaslight District...they've changed too. They're different, but the same. And still wonderful.

I think I've been pulling against myself for a long time. Instead of embracing it and going with it, I've been trying to snatch the reins back, even though it was my idea to pull the carriage in the first place. And when I've taken a wrong turn, I've either blamed it on someone else or beat myself to death for it.

I feel calm. Everything feels suddenly easy and quiet and situated. And I'm done pulling. I am letting everything and accepting it.