stressed.

Last night, I woke up at around 5 AM and my mind immediately clicked on, thinking about the wedding. Not about nice things like promises of eternity or dancing or being radiantly beautiful, but about hors d'oeuvres and flower girl baskets and specific pieces of classical music. This isn't even the first time I've found myself stressed out in the middle of the night over minutia.

I talked to my mom yesterday, and she asked how I was feeling as a bride-to-be. She is obviously excited, and when I answered "Stressed," I think it brought her down a little bit. I wondered whether she was worrying that my lack of enthusiasm about the wedding was really a lack of enthusiasm about marrying Josh.

Let me reassure her. A complaint could be made about some brides, that they do not differentiate between the wedding (the one-day party) and the marriage (the rest of your life with the same person). Some people (not all! not all!) get very caught up in the details, as if the particular guestbook you pick out is going to have any bearing whatsoever on your lifetime happiness. The wedding has to be perfect, otherwise the marriage will be doomed. After all, you can control which guestbook you use, while the rest of your life is sort of this yawning abyss that you are falling down down down, and now you're strapping yourself to this other person. Whee!

This is not my problem. My problem is that there just seems like an awful lot of stuff to do to throw a giant party. I'm not the uptight student who has to get a perfect score; I'm the kid who put off the project until very late and now isn't sure if she has enough time.

I was talking about wedding planning with some women in my book club, specifically making the complaint that it seemed to be a lot of deciding about details that were not especially important to me. And one said, "Okay, what is the most important thing to you?"

"Well, I've got the right man. Isn't that supposed to be the important part?" A couple women went "Aww," while the questioner waved her hand dismissively as if I had misunderstood her. I did misunderstand her. I did it on purpose.

What do I want out of my wedding, a.k.a., the party? I just want everyone to have a good time. And while I will do my best to hire a fun band and serve delicious food and ply everyone with free alcohol, I'm a bit of the opinion that if you don't have a good time at a wedding, you're just being a grumpus. Did you hear about the free alcohol? FREE ALCOHOL.

Sometimes, I realize anew how little time is left, how much there is to do! And I say to Josh, "Only 57 days to go, holy crap!" His response is to hold up his hand for a high-five, because he just wants to marry me. This is the right attitude, this is why I can treat the party itself like a to-do list, because I have the right man. He keeps me from sinking into the ground, and I keep him from floating away.

I just need to get over myself, get my own high-five attitude on, and get it done. Seriously, I'm complaining about having to throw a giant party for everyone I love to celebrate the beginning of my life with this marvelous man and being given complete freedom to spend someone else's money. Sheesh! Talk about a grumpus.