Weddings and Wisdom Teeth

Recap: I got my wisdom teeth out Monday morning and spent the next two days in bed or on the couch watching the food network and eating applesauce, mashed potatoes, jello, scrambled eggs, and Frosties with spoons. Besides a few short phone calls, a much appreciated visit from a great friend, and jibber-jabber with the boys, I hardly had to speak. And most times when I did, it was about needing something for my mouth or talking about the wedding. I went to my first class Wednesday night and managed through three hours of a number of questions from a classroom full of women about the ring on my finger. Most have a hard time imagining themselves planning a wedding in grad school, let alone in the next six months. I told them I cheated and was given a gracious head start by my fiance in mid-December. Apart from that and the help of so many wonderful people, I'd probably feel a bit more overwhelmed.

Still, they just wanted to talk and talk all about it, so I did - trying hard not to smile so much because when I do my face looks ridiculous and feels even worse. It's difficult not to smile though, because though I want my life to be about more than just the wedding until July, I am completely and perfectly happy (Mrs. Neeley... Mrs. Neeley... Mrs. Neeley....). Yesterday was the first day since getting my teeth out that I actually found myself engaging in conversation throughout an entire day. I went to work, which really was nice and talked about things other than my surgery and my wedding - I forgot such incredible conversation existed! Getting outside of me for the first time in a week felt incredible and lent some much needed peace to my wearied mind. Don't get me wrong, I'm not "tired" of it already - that would be a for-certain "shame on me." I was on the verge of it just a day or two ago, because I had lost sight of some important thing, feeling the walls of everyone else's ideas and thoughts closing in on me.

There's this concept, when it comes to wedding planning, that it's "my" day (I'm a giver, so of-course that "my" would be inclusive of Cliff, too). In just a few weeks I have had to fight really hard to figure out how I feel about that concept, struggling with the desire to do this most simply and beautifully, mixed with the idea that everything must be just as I want it, where I want it, how I want it, and when I want it. I get the idea, I really do - because it is a day celebrating us. And the us I want to celebrate is not the "we're perfect, we have it all together, my wedding is better than yours" us, but the joyful, grateful, and unique couple that we are - that love our families and friends and each other so much that we're making a whole day celebration out of it. And that's just it - it lasts for a day, while a marriage lasts a lifetime. I've said a couple of times that I don't want to get so consumed with the wedding that I forget about the marriage.All that to say, I love talking about it (maybe not so much while I'm still recovering) and planning it - but I need everyone else to remember as much as I need to remember that there is more.

There is always more, and for that I am thankful.