i feel it all

my wedding dress has arrived!
Yale and my wedding bands are ready for pick up!
i bought my attendants' gifts last night on etsy!
a random lady in Skokie is giving us some silver forks thanks to Roommate's awesome FreeCycle genius!

things are beginning to take shape.

do most brides-to-be feel *so much* all the time that they can't sleep? are all fiances this tired all the time? or am i coming down with something?

i've never been in love like this before, i've never planned a party this big or this expensive before, i've never had to factor another person's emotional transitions so closely into my own before, i've never had this many variables to calculate in the big "where am i going to live in a few months" question.

and all around me and within me, normal life goes on.

friends have babies.
friends lose their moms.
friends start packing up their little family to head back to Africa.
friends are looking for jobs, looking for apartments, looking for what's next.
people i love suffer, stress, cry, and keep looking.

sometimes it seems like i feel it all. i cry, i pray, i try to work everything out in my brain and heart for them and with them and alongside them.

sometimes it's more like i just feel ME. me me me me me.

ugh.

that's gross.

occasionally i get a strong impulse to just get married at the court house and donate all the wedding money to the haiti earthquake recovery.

i remind myself that celebrating God's blessings with your friends and family is not wrong.

but is it best?

after all these months of praying that my passionate justice-y heart would thaw out and beat strong again after a couple of years of self preservatory hibernation, it is happening to thump loudly in my ears lately about what else could be done with my (albeit comparatively tiny) wedding money....

for now i will drink some tea and keep praying.