"The best days of your life"

So I have heard this quote so many times in the past couple of months that it is almost comical

Enjoy your engagement...those are the best days of your life!" 

But I just don't believe it.

I mean, don't get my wrong, I love my fiance to the moon and back and we are more in love every day so that part, yes, is the best days of my life...which will continue to get better and better until I feel like I am going to explode...

But...

So far, in this engagement, I have cried my eyes out more times than I care to admit. Maybe it is just the overwhelming emotion of realizing that I am forever leaving my shelter and home of 3089 E. Goldfinch Way tucked under the protective wing of the parents who have meant more to me than I could ever convey. Maybe it is because I am folding and tearing so many pieces of paper for programs and fans that my fingers feel like they have tiny battles of war going on with one another. Maybe it is because Matt and I had the brilliant idea of planning a wedding in a tiny bit under 4 months all the while trying to finish a crazy semester of school and finals and papers and start and finish two more classes all before I say I do. Maybe it's because planning a wedding of my own cost me a friendship of which I will not go in to more detail. Maybe it's because during this time my dad has lost a job. Maybe it's because during this time my Noni, whom I dearly loved and lived down the street from, has since gone to be with Jesus. Maybe it's because I am being forced to pick and choose everything down to the napkin and it's overwhelming to have to be the final word on all of these silly, tiny, important details. Maybe it's because I have been apart from some of my dearest friends and bridesmaids for far too long and I just long to see them again. Maybe it's because I always envisioned this process would look one way and in reality it is completely different. Not that it is not wonderful and joyous to plan a day where I know all of my friends and family will be there not only cheering us on but more importantly supporting the decision that is being made.

I was texting a fellow future bride (wedding coming in July!) and she and I were bantering back and forth about how we just want to elope and forget all about the stresses of our wedding days and she said these very wisdomous (yup...said it) words: "I want to call it off. Until I imagine us there...dancing and everyone watching. Just keep those thoughts in your head."

Those words were more of a breath of fresh air than she knew. (she did not mean that she really wanted to call it off...she and her fiance have been together since practically infancy and are uber-in-love)

I guess, in my mind, the best day of my life will in all actuality be June 13th. When I will wake up, next to my husband, and the hoopla and hustle and bustle and craziness will be over. And I will get to live a normal married life beside the man that was created for no one other than me. Because they say that some brides are more about the wedding day than the marriage. But I am absolutely, 100%, totally, completely and insanely the opposite. I am about the marriage rather than the wedding day...and I think that is just. fine.