Going to get married . . . .

This coming weekend, E and I are getting married, after 3 years and many challenges. It has been a long, hard year for me. I couldn't look up and around. My nose was ground down and I'm still recovering from it. This summer, this heady, heated summer was a welcome break . . . and things have shifted and settled. They will continue to, as I prepre to move in with E and move forward with blending families and lives. Am I ready? I have to be.

Perhaps my blank schedule, so unforseen and seemingly unfortunate, will be a blessing in disguise, as I try to negotiate this new reality of being married and living with E in another province with his kids and mine . . . it scares me even to write that down! I just finished reading The Marriage Plot. I loved it. It was the perfect antidote to the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy that I finished on our trip to Spain. It was about lthe draw of love and sprituality rather than pure sex. Of course, there was some sex stirred in, but sex as part of a whole complex of longings. I like books that depict how difficult it is to be truly alive.

That seems to be my challenge now. I've been just surviving since my daughter began and my hopes for love dwindled . . . I was so devastated by the loss of my idealized future and family, that I've been barely aware of myself for these past 5 years. I know E and I helped each other heal from our losses, but we are still healing, and I am still sleeping so much of the time .  . . and I have to shake myself awake, or just grow up. I am so naive so often. I wonder how I've got along thus far. How can I possible get on now?

I think I've always longed for a love that would make me feel secure and I've never had it until now. Maybe now I can stop worrying and begin to focus on being myself. That's what I hope for me. E doesn't have any problem being himself, but I hope he can stop worrying, too, and become more self-aware. That's what I hope for us.