I just have a few thoughts about engagement. Well, thoughts on the general subject. My first thought is: I STILL do not understand what people mean when they say things about enjoying the engagement stage. I've had a few people tell me that I should live it up, enjoy being engaged, and all that. I don't really understand that, honestly. To me it's a little like saying "Hey, you starving man over there-you should enjoy smelling that home-made bread. Seriously, man, enjoy it." Sure, there is plenty to be enjoyed, but the excitement about what's coming makes me a bit impatient. That, and the fact that we decided to get married a month after getting engaged is making preparations crazy. And my mom crazy. It's making preparations and my mom crazy. I'm sure it doesn't help when I go bouncing off the walls, singing away about getting married in the morning and such. "Girls come and kiss me, show how you'll miss me. . ." Honey Bee, please don't be jealous.
Oh, did I mention that I'm getting married? I am! I'm getting married to the most marvelous kind of girl possible. Because she already has a nickname, I'll stick with it, and refer to her as Honey Bee. She's marvelous, and I'll spare all of the the run down about her numerous and various virtues. Let it be enough to say that I love her, and I'm looking forward to loving her more as time goes by. Which is very different from when time goes out. Or when time goes bad. Yeah, that's no good. Rotten time is at the heart of almost all indigestion problems.
I've also noticed that people love to tell you how excited they are for you. Just the other day, when my brother Basserpercusionist (it's been a while since I've referred to him in this blog so I hope that is his nym) and I were having a brothers day, he was so excited for me he told me so about ten times before I said I thought I had an adequate idea of how excited he was. I find it ironic that in a world where marriage is so often belittled, people still get really excited for others when they're getting married.
For my own part, it still feels pretty unreal. By that I mean that it doesn't really feel like I'll be getting married. I look into my future, and I see bacon. Okay, I don't really see bacon, I see me doing mostly what I've been doing for all my life. Marriage presents an entirely new world to me, one that, unlike the mission, my preparation has been second place until only a few years ago. I spent the first nineteen years of my life so focused on going on a mission, knowing that it was expected of me, and that I wanted to go. When I left of my mission I was gung-ho, ready to serve. So much so that I didn't feel any homesickness until about three or four months into my mission. It took that long for the shine of 'being on a mission' to wear off, and for reality of what I was facing to really set it. Coincidentally, that's about when my trainer got transferred.
The years since my mission have been anything but clear as to what my main objective should be. Marriage, definitely important, but education was also vital, as was choosing a career path. I arrive, then, on the engagement scene much less prepared than I was for the mission scene. Those who know me well know that underneath the bubbly exterior I enjoy having is a mind that deliberates to an almost faulty extent. I deliberate on most everything, and when I think the subject is eternally important I deliberate more than is probably healthy. Honey Bee will tell you that I certainly took my time making a decision to even date her, let alone marry her. I am certain that I have made the right choice and that I am going to have happiness greater than any I've known to date, and I'm excited for that. But how do you quiet a mind that is so used to weighing every possible outcome, especially the bad ones? It's my nature to think of what could go wrong, as well as how good things could be.
So I don't understand the enjoying of the engagement stage. I find myself in this limbo land where I'm excited on one level and concerned on another. I'm moving forward into something I don't know. It's dark there. Each step lights up a little (am I in a nintendo game?), but the future still has a lot of unknowns. Being engaged, I could still pull the plug (I'm not going to, in case you're worried. The certain/excited part of me is, in the end of the day, the stronger part), so my mind still works over what could go wrong, or how amazing it could be. I'm a peace loving man, especially when it comes to my own soul, so this limbotic (is that word?) stage I find myself in is not so much fun.
Still, it's pretty early in the whole thing. Heck, I'm getting married and the engagement is still going to be a pretty new thing. I have no doubt that when the day dawns it may just be a lot like when I went on my mission. The waiting will be over, Dad and Mom may cry, and I'll be excited out of my mind, to the point where I won't actually remember much of what happens.
I can't wait.
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