Life Lately — Fearfully & Wonderfully Jo
Well. I blinked and another 1+ year has passed since my last blog post. Aha ha ha. I’m so bad at consistency.
Things that have changed since then? I got a new job. Hit my 1 year with Jeff. Went through some of my lowest lows ever. Lost friends. Got engaged. Secured a wedding venue. Got hit with the Epstein-Barr virus and was down bad for a whole month. Watched both my sister-in-law and little brother get engaged. Got legally married. Joined Jeff’s health insurance plan. Opened a joint bank account with Jeff. Started a birth control pill that has altered the frequency of my periods (and PMS-ing) to a biweekly cadence. What else am I missing… Oh yea and rebranded this blog! Cuz sometimes you just need that new new in your life to bring you a little excitement.
Life lately has felt turbulent, to put it simply, and I’ve found myself at odds with how people tell me this year should feel vs. how I actually feel. “It’s your wedding year! Aren’t you just sooooo excited!!” To be fair, I can understand why people would think I’m the kinda girl who would be over the moon about my wedding.
The truth is, this year has felt quite the opposite. I’ve cried myself to sleep more nights than I care to recount and often find myself wiping away tears during the daytime when something triggers me. People always say to let yourself feel the hard feelings and to allow your body to express them through tears. And yet I can’t seem to justify my bouts of crying. I feel so guilty for feeling sad because everyone tells me this should be my happiest year, that there are so many exciting things happening.
I find myself exhausted every day because the list of to-do’s and to-think-about’s never seems to run dry. After my 9-5, I spend my 5-9 (and weekends) prepping for the “exciting life changes” headed my way. Have I followed up with our vendors on xyz? Did you start thinking of what song you want to walk down the aisle to? Have we scheduled our engagement photo session yet? Can you clear your weekend schedule to help me DIY these invites? Did you make sure to get the address of so and so? Did you check the mail for the marriage certificate? Can you hop on this call with this lawyer to discuss the green card app? Can you last-minute make this open house for this 1-bedroom apartment on 54th street? Have you started the spreadsheet yet for our furniture hunt?
That’s just a tiny snapshot of what goes through my brain on the daily LOL, on top of all the stresses that come with my full-time job. It’s real messy up there. Which may be why my migraines have been a raging monster. On second thought, that could also be thanks to the birth control.
I saw a TikTok the other day from a former bride who said her wedding year was the worst year of her life. And it felt incredibly validating. I related to everything she was saying, nothing felt like an exaggeration. Thank you TikTok stranger!
As I reflect on why I feel this way, I’m realizing that it stems equally from a sense of loss as well as a desire to fulfill this put-together persona that I perceive others to believe of me.
I always knew that whenever I got married, life would change. But change encapsulates loss. And loss is hard. The loss of friendships, independence (to some degree), my cute lil studio apartment, just to name a few. It’s been everything all at once and processing all of that has just felt… impossible. It’s also felt incredibly lonely as wedding planning and moving prep has stolen away most of my social battery and availability.
With wedding planning, I feel this unspoken pressure to make sure everything is super chic and expertly planned, especially since I work in fashion and event planning. My eye for aesthetics is supposed to be “on point.” (Fun fact: I found and decided on my wedding dress in one week after only visiting one boutique because I just did not have the mental capacity, not because I’m decisive.) A fear that also haunts the back of my mind daily revolves around the possibility that people won’t come to our wedding, which makes me really sad. I often think about what life would look like now if I had decided to proceed with a simple courthouse wedding…
Even though life has felt less-than-stellar, I’m reminded that I am still very blessed. It’s moments like these that remembering what I have been given is crucial to moving forward. I thank God profusely for giving me a hubby (still so foreign to write out loud) who loves and makes an effort for me every day. I’m grateful for a really solid family, which sadly is becoming harder and harder to find nowadays. I have good people in my life. And I feel so fortunate that I am never in want of essential needs.
But acknowledging my blessings doesn’t mean that I’m not allowed to be sad and anxious. I’m trying to tell myself that I can appreciate all the joys of this year - getting married, moving in with Jeff, starting a new chapter - while also encountering some of my lowest points. It’s possible to hold both truths at once. Happiness and sadness can live in duality, which is the essence of the human experience.
I’ve started to view this year as a season of growing pains. Difficult, but necessary. A season of shaping. In order to fully embrace what God has in store for me. Because every part of my life is in transition, I have to shed old habits to make room for the new, and that process can be really painful. It’s challenged my faith a lot, but simultaneously, it’s given me reason to draw up memories of all the times God has pulled through for me. And there have been many.
The other night, when I was crying in bed again, Jeff gave me a hug and assured me everything would be ok. That all things would happen in God’s timing. And I do believe that to be true. In the messy of life, it’s God’s presence and the knowledge that He always makes a way that propels us forward. It’s in the crazy of the every day - through wedding planning, apartment hunting, and everything in between - that God has an opportunity to reveal His loving and gentle character to us.
Pause. Be Still. Listen.
Can you see Him? Can you hear Him?
He is there. He is all around. Embracing me when the tears fall and won’t stop falling.
Make room, and you will feel it too.
xoxo, Jo
