The beat goes on.

It's the unfortunate thing we know as period week. Poor Christopher has to deal with some silly crazy emotions from one end of the spectrum to the other. He's dealt with laughing and crying in the same conversation, self loathing and hating the world, and near mania where I feel like everything is better than ok. The simple fact that all of this occurs and he still understands me the best he can is just one more thing to add to the list of things that make me love him.

    This week I've been having a lot of trouble with the idea of the wedding, the loss of my best friend, the potential of bringing my father back into my life, looking for work, and life in general.
    I'm glad we've got time, because I keep bouncing back and forth on the wedding thing. One part of me wants to elope this weekend. Just the two of us, nobody else, no one to talk or criticize, and nobody to support us. We know that there are very few people that we can truly count on and those people are more valuable now than ever. Those people would also be the ones who understand why we left to do it alone. Then I bounce back to the dress and the cake and the music and my mother and my sister. Not to mention Chris. Everyone I love deserves to have this wonderful wedding that they'll remember. A special day filled with special moments, remembered through photos and anecdotes forever. I deserve it too. I don't want to wake up one day and wish that my wedding, my only wedding, had been different. This back and forth needs to be played out in some aspect... I think I need to consider the options to make sure I don't make the wrong decisions. (Of course I know, deep down, there is no wrong decision. As long as we get down to it and sign the paperwork, exchange the rings and come home to one another we'll have made the right decision!)
    The whole issue with losing my best friend perpetuates. It's painful every time I think about her. It's like a break up when your boyfriend was abusing you, and isolating you from your friends. You know it's the right thing to do, and in the long run it will stop hurting and you'll be better off, but it sucks. Not only does it suck but the comments that they made over years of being together really cut you down. This person knew you better than anyone else. You did everything for them, so if they say you can never do enough maybe you simply can't be enough for other people. But you finally get out of the relationship. It's ugly and messy and public, but it gets done. You even apologize for how things happened, and essentially get spit on. Then you're back out in the world and you realize that you're isolated. That person kept you away from friends, lying and putting wedges and rifts between you and everyone else. I realize now that I'm not even sure how I feel about most of the people we went to high school with. While I was away with college she created and destroyed relationships and stories, all of which I fell into when I came home. So the fact that ** is a cheater and abusive? I don't know. She said it was true and I took it to be as such for years. Now when I see someone and I turn to Chris to tell him what I know about that person, I realize that for 90% I'm telling him what she told me. Now I have to try to build relationships with people who I've been lied to about, and most likely they've been lied to about me too. So not only did she ruin things between us and break me down, but through her drama she's making it very difficult for me to recover after she's gone.
    My father's role in all this is troublesome for me as well. My dad has had this in and out pattern in my life, and every time he is in he goes back out and it hurts. This is one of the reasons that I have so much of an issue trusting people in general, but men especially. In addition, I don't want to exclude someone from a day that will undoubtedly be one of the most important days in my life and regret it later.
    Work is another issue here. While I love what I'm doing with my life, I feel like I'm involved in some research that could really benefit people one day, and I'm learning a lot. Unfortunately that makes my hours kind of complicated and variable, and research doesn't pay, not at this level at least. So now, I can depend on my husband to be for everything, or step up and get a part time job (which I haven't done in quite some time with school being my job) and contribute. It's stressful and a little daunting.


    Over the past 2 months my life has changed, almost completely. I still have a plan, and I've still got an amazing support system. No matter what the future brings, I'm sure I'll be able to make it through.

"I knew we'd need a back-up plan. The boat was actually Plan C. The church was Plan B and Plan A was marrying her a long, long time ago. Pretty much the day I met her." -Jim, the Office.