one month

Can you believe it? As of today, there's only one month left until our wedding. How did we get here so quickly? I suppose it happened day by day, with each one seeming shorter than the one before it. By the time we are finished working, working out, running errands, cooking, and crossing things off our wedding to-do list, it's almost invariably past midnight.

It always feels like we're not doing enough. No matter how hard we try, there are always photos to edit, people to call, papers to mark, or pages to write.  Every day seems to have so much unfinished, and the days flow into each other, punctuated only briefly by sleep.

So I wanted to write today to mark this place in time. I want to give us a reference point, a small piece of something to hold on to when we try to remind ourselves what this time felt like.

It feels like it always does, but with more blissful highs and much tenser lows. We argue and we apologize. I jump up and down with excitement over ideas and you smile in spite of yourself as you calmly try to explain why I can't hang 140 photos of our guests from ribbons. When we argue, we do so knowing deep down that these things that seem so critical now are so insignificant in comparison to what really matters about a wedding day.

I show you endless photos and videos of other peoples' love stories on wedding blogs, because I am so in love with love, in all its expressions and permutations.

You don't care about other peoples' wedding photos; you're just in love with me (yay).

Oh, and with the Montreal Canadiens. I get mad and yell that you love hockey more than me. You don't try very hard to deny this. It is, after all, the first day of playoffs. But like I said, I love love, and I will begrugdingly admit that this extends to your affection for the Habs. Why else would I wake up at 6 am on a weekend to take photos of you playing on your beloved team's ice?

The closer we get to putting our rings on and making this 6+ year love affair officially official, the sharper everything comes into focus. It's like I'm suddenly looking at our relationship under a magnifying glass, rushing to talk about things and develop this nomenclature for everything. Like I need to be totally, completely aware of everything about us and what it means now vs then vs going forward. I must drive you crazy. I drive myself crazy.

The truth is I know nothing will become irrevocably locked-in once we say our vows. The moment that you start looking at marriage as the end of something is the moment that a ring becomes akin to a shackle.

You aren't a girl, so you might not remember this, but Claire's used to sell these awesome Best Friend Forever (BFF) heart necklaces. You would buy them with a friend, split them in half, and each friend would wear half a broken heart around her neck. That's kind of emo, looking back, but they were so cool! I halved many of them with many great friends over the years, and I was always happy knowing I had BFFs.

Anyways, I think of our wedding rings as high class bff heart necklaces. Starting next month, I will wear my wedding ring knowing that my very best friend always wears its complement. Forever.

Like anything real, love changes with each passing day. It's evolving alongside us, and in between us. It is even more exciting now than it was when you were courting me by making me mix CDs.

Yeah, we feel buried under a huge pile of tasks and ideas right now, but we're digging our way to the surface together and soon it will all be so worth it.