After Andrew proposed everyone I encountered asked the same question, “so, what is it like being engaged!?” Usually their voice raised an octave or two at the end making it sound like an extra exciting question…which always left me with the pressure of providing an extra exciting response. I never had one.
The hours following the engagement were obviously some of the most exciting of my life…but by the next morning very few things had changed for the positive. So we are spending the rest of our lives together…didn’t we already know that? We get to plan an outrageously expensive and detailed wedding….are we sure we want to do that? I will not put on a wedding gown until I am 15 pounds lighter…do I really want to diet? I like to call this the “post-engagement funk”.
Once the funk had lifted we were left with the daunting task of planning a wedding and the rest of our lives together. Suddenly, things that never used to bother me were beginning to. “Andrew, do you really think it’s a good idea to eat in front of the TV EVERY SINGLE NIGHT??! What about our future children? Do we want them to be couch potatoes? Huh??” These are usually followed by a breakdown about my inability to even be in the same room as a child. “I can’t have kids! I hate kids, they hate me. I DON’T WANT TO BE called ‘mommy’, what if they get your diabetes? What if they get my slow metabolism and non-existent immune system? What if the two of us making a child is the biggest disaster to ever happen?!” Then there are the moments when Andrew will do something especially annoying (i.e. leave his clothes and socks strewn around the LIVING ROOM) that I realize these annoying habits aren’t going away…often times I pause in a situation and think…this is our life.
The good news is…that despite all of the uncertainty I know we will have to tackle in life. Children, bills, careers, bad days-weeks-years…I know that Andrew is the one I want next to me through it all. Being in love is not all passion and kind words; its respect, trust and a strong will to forgive.
Last week when I was incredibly sick with the cold/flu Andrew came home from work late one night and woke me, only slightly, from my NyQuil induced coma. I didn’t say anything, I barely opened my eyes. He sat down next to me on the bed, brushed the back of his very cold hand across my cheek before pressing his own cheek against my forehead to check my temperature. I must have passed the temperature test because he kissed me, fixed the blankets and left the room to wind down from work. I drifted off with the cool imprint of his cheek tingling on my forehead; this is our life, I thought…and its a good one.
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