Forever's gonna start [tomorrow] (1 day)

I almost died today. It was an insane feeling. In comparison to that, all the other little anvils falling through the roof aren't affecting me much. I will be just fine. I have my dear friends with me tonight. My joy is a bright star.

Forever's gonna start tomorrow.

If you weren't real I would make you up (9 days)

Bright Eyes! Jordan is going to sing this at our reception.

This is the first day of my life
I swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach

Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don’t know where I am
I don’t know where I’ve been
But I know where I want to go

And so I thought I’d let you know
That these things take forever
I especially am slow
But I realize that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home

Remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange you said everything changed
You felt as if you'd just woke up
And you said “this is the first day of my life
I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you
But now I don’t care I could go anywhere with you
And I’d probably be happy”

So if you want to be with me
With these things there’s no telling
We just have to wait and see
But I’d rather be working for a paycheck
Than waiting to win the lottery
Besides maybe this time is different
I mean I really think you like me

I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul (14 Days)

My heart has been melting all morning. I prayed at the same window that I used to go to in those first frantic, tender mornings right after I came home from Houston. The sunlight pouring over the mountain and trees and my backyard was comforting to me; I was so newly home that I felt most of the time that I didn't have any skin...I was oozing, falling apart, and the tiniest things were painful because I'd been scrubbed so raw. I remember the first week and second and third begging the same thing out into the sunshine: Perdoname Senor por haberme alejado de ti...I said the same thing this morning. Then I came downstairs and I'm listening to the music that made up the walls of my world 5 summers ago. I had a dear friend then who told me humbling stories about my dark ages and I had a peculiar sensation of erasure. He said he knew why he loved me in the first place but not in the second or third. There was so much lining of the world that I hadn't unraveled in those days although I felt burdened by all I did know. I carry my memories with me, little weights in my pockets like chess pieces. I take them out and arrange them, that dead game, and think, what if I'd made this move? Or this one? If only I had known. Looking at them this morning, they seem like houses too small to contain me now. There is an ineffable brightness moving across the sky.

The doctor I met with yesterday told me that marriage is the hardest and most heartbreaking thing in the world. Her husband died two months ago of a brain tumor (at age 49) and they were not happy. I looked into her eyes and I believed her, but I wasn't afraid. She told me that she was excited for me, but that she also felt really bad for me because of what I would go through. So we talked about loss. We talked about the loss someone unhappy in a marriage feels and the loss of never being married, loss of certain freedoms when you become a mother or the loss of never holding your own baby. What lasts at the end of life and what you lose by choosing to trust someone or choosing to never trust anyone. If it is worth more to stay forever the princess on the tower telling all the lovestruck Romeos "It's just that time [is] wrong" or to become stripped of your defenses, fall into vulnerability with all your flaws exposed, and through that pain change into a better version of yourself. I loved talking with her because there was no idle chatter and no wasted words. We spoke the whole time only about the things that are most dear to us. It seems fitting that in such a personal situation we'd discuss the most personal things...I wasn't expecting that, but I liked it that way. :) After the exam she told me she wished Jonathan was there so she could tell him that he was a very lucky guy. She told me that I'm in the right field and that it shows in how I carry and express myself. And then she hugged me, in my paper shirt, right before she left. It felt like something out of a book, and also like I proved something to myself. I know that life will bring pain and I accept that. But I have a bright companion and I don't have to be in the dark unless I choose that. I want to choose light, choose goodness, choose to be childlike and not bitter. The only way out is up.

'Cause I'll tell you everything about living free (19 Days)

500 Days of Summer is a hard movie for me to watch (ever but especially) right now (everyone feels this way because everyone has been Summer and everyone has been Tom); particularly the scene where Summer and Tom are at the movie watching the scene of the bride and groom waving enthusiastically behind them as they drive away. In the scene, they turn around and sit forward--literally facing their future and driving away from their past--and you can see the excitement and happiness drain from their expressions. Their faces become tense and almost sick. You can see the panicked questions etched above their heads: What have I done? What happens now? Where am I going to? They don't touch, don't glance at each other. They are so newly united, so freshly waved goodbye, then the horror of permanency sets in and they are more alone than ever before. Summer, watching the movie (meta!) weeps and later when Tom asks her why she refuses to tell him. I felt like I might know. I remembered the chapter in Persepolis as well where Marjane gets married and described it as a door slamming shut. The comic showed her peeking out between bars of a cell.

These are the kinds of thoughts that plague me. They appeal to me because they feed my ugliest fears, they have elements of tragedy and drama that are tantalizing in their hideousness. These thoughts hurt me, they are cloying, they are based in deep wounds. As my anxiety has been increasing, I find myself more susceptible to cynicism and fatalism than I have been in months. It's been rough. It's not my best self. The other day I was driving, and this magical thought occurred to me: Why am I dooming my relationship to inevitable misery? Why don't I fight for it? Why am I giving up now, in my mind? I know Jonathan, and I know he will always fight with me. One of the reasons I respected him and found him so trustworthy at the beginning was how he advocated for choice. He helped me see the truth about myself, about situations I'd been in that I'd learned to describe in pretty cobwebby ways, as though I and the other poor players were mere puppets controlled by our emotions. He schools his feelings, I let passion shatter reason's tower. We've both helped each other change in that regard. I can't speak for him, but I know the changes in me have been infinitely right. He loved me for "having a lot of feelings" but he also expected things out of me, held me accountable in ways that others hadn't. Those things I learned from him, that spun my world out of control at the beginning, are what I am leaning on now to help me recognize how silly I am (my tendencies, my dysthymia). My life won't be ripped from my grasp--I have it in my hands always. Jonathan and I are the creators of our home, our family, our relationship. It doesn't really matter what other people's experiences have been. I can make something destructive, crumbling selfish and small, or I can make something beautiful out of this. That's my best self. My best self is faithful and grateful. So thankful for the sweetest moments imaginable. Like today: we went to Northampton with Katie to take bridals and we saw each other dressed up in wedding finery and my knees shook because I felt so humbled by this, why would I ever be disdainful of such a blessing? I love Jonathan so much. He is so good. I get annoyed because he likes to be John Marsden and whoever he'll be in Starcraft 2 but when I listen to him talk about Christ and pull out the center and the intentions of any form of communication while I wander around in the wilderness of detail, I am amazed. He understands about the People and lifting the hands that hang down. I really believe we're going to do great things together. So when we wave goodbye to the celebration and turn around, I want to look up into his face and be glad together about the opportunities we have to do good. That's all we are here for, not to fret about shallow things. We're here to follow Christ and to love the loveless, and to love each other. So instead of a door slamming shut, it will be a door springing open, like he told me once. I'm excited about walking through that door. There is nowhere else I would rather be.

Darse Cuenta

Just the other night, Rachel and I were saying a prayer together. It's always really sweet to pray with Rachel. I love seeing what other people pray about on a personal level, and I've probably not heard more personal prayers than Rachel's. But at the end of this one, something hit me: I'm getting married in like 3 weeks! I thought it was so weird! Sometimes these things just hit us! It's something you've prepared for, thought about, dreamed about for a VERY long time. But somehow when it comes up, it seems so much like something out of this world. The point is, it hit me...hard! But the good thing about it, is how sweet it was. Though I felt a little bit of anxiety, I realized it was a really good anxiety...it was me being anxious to be married! I can't believe how sweet it was.

I think it is amazing how you can be preparing for something your whole life, know that it was going to be something that happened in your life, and still be insanely joyous when it is about to happen. More than you could have imagined. I believe that our lives together will be similar, our current joy always putting to shame our most intensely positive ideas of what we thought our joy would feel like. Thank you, Only Racher! I'm honored to be with you.