Somehow, I was remiss in writing about my actual wedding.
My thoughts are many, but mostly they boil down to it being everything I hoped it would be. It's a little snow globe of happiness I return to again and again now that I'm back in the real world.
I've never felt happier, or more in love, or more loved. Not just by my husband, but by all the people who came, and who helped, and who celebrated. I am overwhelmed by the generosity.
I came up with some vows. They are not identical to the ones I toyed with previously, but they were close. These are them:
Message bodyIn writing my vows to you, I realized it is not enough for me to make a list of promises. It is not enough to say that I will honor you, be faithful to you and love you. I have to first understand what it means to keep these promises.
In honoring you, and our marriage, I will appreciate the moments that make a life together. I will make sure you know that, no matter how many times you come home from work - however late or early - it is one of the best moments of my day. I will devote myself to our family, but also to my aspirations and dreams, so that you will always have a partner who has something to share with you for all the years we are together. Likewise, I will support you in your dreams and your aspirations in every way that I can.
Being faithful is not merely keeping to a set of rules and expectations. Faithfulness is pushing all the gifts of my mind, heart and body to not only maintain the joy and happiness we feel today, but to constantly seek new ways to build upon it, filling our lives with kindness and affection, with security and adventure.
In loving you, I will always remember that love is an action. It is a choice we make every day, and the best choice I've ever made. It is a risk that demands fearlessness, to deliver your heart and your happiness into the hands of another, and no one has ever made me more brave. It is an act of creation, and I could not wish for a better collaborator and partner than you to make a home, a family and a life.
I recently learned the nearly the very first thing we do in life -- when we are little more than a clump of cells in our mothers' womb -- is we grow a heart. For me, that makes it the wisest organ of the body, and I am grateful that mine was wise enough and fortunate enough to find you. I love you, and I will for the rest of my life.
Friday, September 23, 2011
To my son
Hi there little guy -
We've been through a lot together this year. The few months before you, well -- I shouldn't lay all that on you. Let's just say, I was so scared there wouldn't ever be a you. Then, when I was least expecting it, you came along. You're like your dad in that regard.
I think about you all the time. And, if I stop thinking about you, you're good at reminding me with a little kick, which usually tickles. I keep looking for some pattern. Consistently, you seem to make yourself known when I'm hungry - which probably means you're hungry, too. I make guesses the rest of the time. For a few months, I called you dinobean. Because, unfortunately, that's what we all look like in the beginning - little bean-sized dinosaurs. I'll do my best to not call you that once you're born. But, it's been a long time since I called you that. Most of the time, I call you by the name that we will probably give you.
I want to know you so badly. I am guilty of assigning little personality traits to you, but you will show me in time who you are.
We're trying to find a new home for us. It's different looking at places now, because more than trying to see if I can imagine myself in them, I try to imagine you. I worry about you having enough space to play, enough room to grow. I want to bring you into a place that is happy and good. This first home won't be everything that I want it to be, but it will be a step toward that.
Your grandmother asks about you almost every day. We talk about the things we want to do for you, and what I was like as a baby, and what maybe you'll be like as a baby. We talk about the places we will take you when you're a little older, and how your pap-pap is going to be afraid to hold you until you're a little bigger. So many people have so many dreams for you. You don't have to do all of them. When you come up with your own, we'll work on those together.
I love you, little guy. I hope everything is going well for you in there. Just 14 more weeks or so, and it will be time for your life to really begin. Love you so much already, and I just know when I get to hold you, it's going to blow me away.
Until then, keep kicking away. Listen to the stories your dad tells you -- that's a voice that will stick with you. And rest up while you can!
Love,
Your mommy
We've been through a lot together this year. The few months before you, well -- I shouldn't lay all that on you. Let's just say, I was so scared there wouldn't ever be a you. Then, when I was least expecting it, you came along. You're like your dad in that regard.
I think about you all the time. And, if I stop thinking about you, you're good at reminding me with a little kick, which usually tickles. I keep looking for some pattern. Consistently, you seem to make yourself known when I'm hungry - which probably means you're hungry, too. I make guesses the rest of the time. For a few months, I called you dinobean. Because, unfortunately, that's what we all look like in the beginning - little bean-sized dinosaurs. I'll do my best to not call you that once you're born. But, it's been a long time since I called you that. Most of the time, I call you by the name that we will probably give you.
I want to know you so badly. I am guilty of assigning little personality traits to you, but you will show me in time who you are.
We're trying to find a new home for us. It's different looking at places now, because more than trying to see if I can imagine myself in them, I try to imagine you. I worry about you having enough space to play, enough room to grow. I want to bring you into a place that is happy and good. This first home won't be everything that I want it to be, but it will be a step toward that.
Your grandmother asks about you almost every day. We talk about the things we want to do for you, and what I was like as a baby, and what maybe you'll be like as a baby. We talk about the places we will take you when you're a little older, and how your pap-pap is going to be afraid to hold you until you're a little bigger. So many people have so many dreams for you. You don't have to do all of them. When you come up with your own, we'll work on those together.
I love you, little guy. I hope everything is going well for you in there. Just 14 more weeks or so, and it will be time for your life to really begin. Love you so much already, and I just know when I get to hold you, it's going to blow me away.
Until then, keep kicking away. Listen to the stories your dad tells you -- that's a voice that will stick with you. And rest up while you can!
Love,
Your mommy
Friday, September 2, 2011
A strange observation.
People who once loomed large in my life, but have passed out of it, have a habit of visiting while I sleep. Relationships that were at one point important in defining who I am, or at least who I was, but are now just memories crop up again and again in dreams.
They're less the people themselves, but these dreamtime archetypes. The dreams don't generally replay old events. They're not the kind of dreams made up of bits and pieces of the day, the brain taking all of the week's leftovers and making them into some kind of hash. Occasionally, there are dreams when I try to fix what was broken, and the repairs are generally poor and fall apart well before I wake up. Those are easy enough to understand.
But more often, the dreams are not even really about the specific people. Just whatever it is they've come to represent in my psyche. Which, in a way, is sad. These people who meant so much are now just heiroglyphics in my mind. Mental and emotional cuneiform. If I took the time to decipher them, I might be able to reduce them down to a definition. A word. A feeling. I try not to wonder for too long about their real-time counterparts, or if some heiroglyphic version of me enters their dreams, and what that me stands for, and if I would be sorry about that symbolism.
They're less the people themselves, but these dreamtime archetypes. The dreams don't generally replay old events. They're not the kind of dreams made up of bits and pieces of the day, the brain taking all of the week's leftovers and making them into some kind of hash. Occasionally, there are dreams when I try to fix what was broken, and the repairs are generally poor and fall apart well before I wake up. Those are easy enough to understand.
But more often, the dreams are not even really about the specific people. Just whatever it is they've come to represent in my psyche. Which, in a way, is sad. These people who meant so much are now just heiroglyphics in my mind. Mental and emotional cuneiform. If I took the time to decipher them, I might be able to reduce them down to a definition. A word. A feeling. I try not to wonder for too long about their real-time counterparts, or if some heiroglyphic version of me enters their dreams, and what that me stands for, and if I would be sorry about that symbolism.
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