The last post.

The last few weeks have been weird.

1) I discovered that I am, in fact, more of an extrovert than an introvert.

2) I had so much alone time it made me feel like gollum.

3) I was massively productive, but my room is still a mess.

4) Phone calls and text messages. So many of them. The cake lady, the coordinator, the reception person, the church sound guy, the hair lady, people who are playing music for us, the photographer, the caterer, and probably some other people I forgot.

5) There are a lot of presents stacked up in Daniel's room and the playroom.

6) We're supposed to be closing on a house this week and Josh has to be out of his apartment before Friday, which gives us a day and a half to pack his stuff and move it. Somewhere. Hopefully the house.

6 1/2) I don't know where we're sleeping between Sunday and Tuesday.

7) I've actually had more free time than I expected, and am on my fourth book of the summer. I also watched the first season of The Paradise on Netflix.

8) Our fridge and dining room are currently full of flowers. We had a couple of heart-wrenching scares that a) the order may not have been processed and b) OH GOSH THE FEDEX GUY DIDN'T DROP OFF THE HYDRANGEAS WHAT IF HE DOESN'T COME BACK TIL TOMORROW AND ALL THE HYDRANGEAS ARE DEAD?? But it's all worked out fine so far. The Fedex guy came back later.

9) Did you know that Hobby Lobby can be really therapeutic?

10) I've been more active on praying about things that bother me as soon as they come up, and I've also memorized Psalm 16. Those are both great things.

Since my last blog post, time seemed to slow down. I don't know if I was doing less or if God just put a bubble over me.

How do I describe what the few weeks before the wedding have been like? Not majestic or surreal or glittery or Big-Fat-Greek-Wedding-crazy, but different and disconnected. Like my head is a balloon or a unicorn came home and everyone accepted it as something normal.

That didn't make sense.

Hm.

Imagine that Christmas is coming and nobody has decorated for it. Everyone wants to talk to you about Christmas--which is great because OMG Christmas is great!--but there's no Christmas music on the radio, nobody is baking cookies, and other than your preparations, it doesn't seem like it's actually coming.

Maybe that's what it feels like?

Then again, I haven't been all that connected to feelings. All this transition is coming up, and usually when transitions come up, I get all sorts of nostalgic and reflective...but I'm not this time.

I think I'm just ready to do it.

I've gone through stages. I've questioned whether or not Josh was the one while simultaneously struggling with the urge to ride off into the sunset with a tattooed motorcyclist. I've mused about a courthouse wedding. I scoured and the abandoned pinterest. I watched strings of wedding youtube videos and cried.

So I guess the last couple of weeks, while lacking in sparkling emotion, were a time to rest and prepare. Which is good, because the events begin tomorrow.

It's been stressful, but nothing as bad as what I expected.

Three days left as Miss Love, which means that I'll have to start a new blog.

With a new husband.

In a new house.

And a new chapter.

 Our "last" date, when we weren't allowed to talk wedding.

The dining room and fridge overflowing with plants.

The wedding is making me crazy (part two).

I get married in [less than] three weeks.

School ended at the beginning of June, and the days leading up to that were more than a little stressful. It wasn't a good send off for my month-long trip to Wedding Land.
Predictably, I started hitting panic attack mode. It's been a good opportunity to practice my steps--and they work!--but my counselor and I had to have this conversation before I could get a grip:

Me: I'm feeling really anxious. I hope it's not because I got off my medicine.

Her: You're getting married in a month. This is normal.

Me: Oh yeah!

This stage of wedding and engagement stuff is different from the initial months of planning. All the big things are done: booking things, buying my dress, sending invitations, and so forth. Now we're in the final stretch, which is full of tiny, tedious things.

Examples (some are done, and some are not):

Finding ferns to go up on stage during the ceremony.

Buying makeup that isn't applied with a foam brush.

Getting earrings.

Calling the sound guy at the church.

Making a song list for the dj.

Making a shot list for the photographer so that we don't take a thousand years taking pictures.

Planning the day-of schedule (thank the Lord for my wedding coordinator).

Deciding on a sandwich platter for lunch the day of.

Researching our honeymoon place so we don't get stranded.

Buying a bunch of picture frames.

Messaging the cake lady. A lot.

Picking out wedding ceremony songs and asking people to play them for us.
Asking someone to man the ceremony programs.
Ordering flowers.
Putting the engagement announcement in the paper.
Collecting last-minute RSVPs.
And so forth.

Last weekend, I had a meltdown over lipstick.

LIPSTICK.

Here's what happened:
Audrey's friend is going to help us with makeup on the wedding day. She's good at makeup, but since I rarely wear noticeable makeup, we couldn't decide on the right colors for my face.We did two trial runs, neither of which was a smashing success. There was a debate on how much eyebrow I actually needed (because my eyebrows are close to invisible), and I thought--

I'll fix this with lipstick! Everything will look better with lipstick!

So I went to Ulta. My sales lady looked like Fergie and wasn't very helpful. I bought some lipstick, but when I tried it on again at home I didn't like it.

That was when I hit the meltdown. What if my wedding makeup ended up being a disaster? What if I put my lipstick on and had to rub it off and start over and my lips got all raw so that I looked like a kid who'd had a bunch of kool-aid? What if I looked like a vampire and nobody would tell me? What if I thought it looked good, and then in pictures it didn't?
AND HOW MUCH EYEBROW DID I ACTUALLY NEED TO MAKE MY FACE ACCEPTABLE??

The next day, I went to Belk and got new lipstick.
I tried on both lipsticks in my wedding dress and now I think I will go for the first one.
That's right. I dragged out my wedding dress just to decide on lipstick.

That wasn't the only body-conscious train of thought I've ridden on.

For a while, I was horribly self-conscious of my arms.

My rational mind knew that they are perfectly normal, healthy, fully-functional arms.

My irrational mind thought that they looked fat and red and awkwardly long at the ends.

So I started doing arm workouts with bottles of bodywash because I'm too cheap to go out and buy little arm weights.

There was also the three-day self-tanner obsession, in which I thought I could fix all of my problems with a sunless tan.

Why? Because it's summer and I'm afraid of a farmer's tan in my strapless dress.

And because I had a terrifying dream in which I forgot to reapply sunscreen and got the worst sunburn of my life two days before the wedding.

There are, of course, other frustrations, like.........
Actually, I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Everyone tells you not to worry about the details too much, which is true, but when you're having a wedding with a lot of people, the details do need some attending. It'll make me feel better just to know that I've finished them beforehand.

Now that I've gone through the negatives, here are some things that I HAVE enjoyed:

Sending invitations.

Writing thank you notes. 

Getting RSVPs back with stickers or confetti.

Making decisions with Josh.

Doing walk-throughs at the church and reception venue.

Talking with my wedding coordinator.
Walking through Hobby Lobby twenty times.
Being congratulated by everyone, and talking to people who are genuinely excited about coming to the wedding.
The "cake tasting" I did with Josh (mini cupcakes at his apartment).
Basically anything I've done with Josh.
The anticipation of having my best friends here together.
Hitting the check mark on that to-do list.

Last week Josh and I headed up to our reception venue with my parents to take pictures.
It was perfectly dreamy--low humidity with pretty blue skies and bright-green grass.
That was when I finally felt like everything would be ok.
The wedding will be beautiful, and if Josh is there it has to be good.
And truth be told, as long as I become Mrs. Davis, have cake, and get to dance, I think I'll be fine.

WE'RE GETTIN HITCHED!

Solidarity for my anxious friends.

Yikes.

It's been a while since I posted anything.

But I'm a teacher and it's May and I'm getting married in a month and a half, so I've been a little scattered.

SORRY.

This post is neither about the wedding nor about teaching.

It's another one about anxiety.

I've been aware of my anxiety issues since the summer before I went to China, when my body was doing weird things, like giving me nerve-shocking sensations that made me believe I was dying.

I was not, in fact, dying, I was simply moving to Asia with a bunch of people I'd never met.

I had six weeks of miserable adjustment, and then I learned how to deal with things.

Since then, I've been able to see more correlations between my brain and other symptoms, like stomachaches and leg cramps. 

I probably have a generalized anxiety disorder. 

A lot of people do.

Hilariously enough, this didn't translate when I started having panic attacks last summer. Once again, I thought I was dying, but it should've been obvious.

Here's a recap for those who don't know.

It had been a rough year of teaching.

I was in a sudden and serious relationship.

I went to six freaking cities in Europe in less than a month.

I MEAN.

COME ON.

But by the second week in Europe, it had escalated into panic disorder.

See, here's what happened:

My body had learned to respond my brain's constant anxious thoughts. It had gotten so used to doing this--for a year--that it had started going into fight-or-flight mode when there was nothing to be afraid of. This led to panic attacks. And after a while, I became afraid of myself because I didn't know how to control the panic, so I was in a constant state of 

I MUST AVOID STIMULATION OR I WILL SURELY GO MAD AND DIE.

Not wanting to go places or do things that may cause high anxiety is called agoraphobia. It happens to a lot of people who have a couple of panic attacks close together.

It makes sense.

Anyway, I had this agoraphobia which made it really hard to even leave the house. It was...discouraging.

Conveniently enough, my dad is a doctor. He started me on Zoloft. The initial symptoms were AWWWFULLLL, but it did help me level out so that I could think more clearly.

Then I started counseling, and it was SUCH A SMART THING TO DO.

My counselor helped me make sense of what was going on. She helped me take a step back so that I could see all the problems through the lens of logic.

(Sidenote: Everyone should get counseling. All the time. For everything. It's the best. I watch movies now and think to myself, "All of this would've been solved if they'd gotten counseling! THERAPY FOR EVERYONE!")

I learned that the brain is an extremely malleable thing, and that our thoughts become pathways that are easier to go down every time we think them. Because our bodies respond to our thoughts--we cry when we're sad, tense up when we're mad, and so forth--having anxious, negative thoughts all the time can really take it's toll on our health and sanity. Our brains go down the anxiety pathway more and more quickly, and our bodies follow suit, like Cogsworth running after angry Beast.

And I, someone who is already a slight perfectionist/hypochondriac/overthinker, was pre-disposed to fall into panic with all these stressful thoughts.

My thought life looked like this: 

My great and fabulous and awesome counselor gave me tools to deal with panic attacks so that I wouldn't have to fear them so much, and we came up with steps to follow whenever I started to feel an attack coming.

Wanna know what the steps are?

GREAT, I KNEW YOU WOULD.

1) Belly breathe, which literally triggers the calming part of the brain.

2) Identify and accept how you feel rather than resisting it. I call this "hugging your emotions so that they go away".

3) Cry if you need to cry, dangit.

4) Move slowly, but keep moving.

5) Remind yourself that the panic will go away.

6) EAT SOMETHING.

More important than knowing these steps is taking care of my mind in between. Having quiet times of meditation is key. So is identifying negative thoughts and combatting them as quickly as possible.

Most important, though, is actually praying about my thoughts. God has told us to take our thoughts captive to Christ because he KNOWS that if we do this, our sense of His authority over everything will increase, which will make us calmer about circumstances we can't control. If we get into the habit of this, we will develop healthy thought patterns to replace the anxious ones.

Of course, doing that is the hardest part.

Dunno why.

Since last August, I've only had one true panic attack, which was in January. It was over within an hour, and I went about my day after that.

Maybe that was because of the Zoloft. Maybe it was because I hugged my emotions and followed my steps.

I fully weaned off of Zoloft about three weeks ago, and I haven't really noticed a difference.

Yes, I still have anxious thoughts and edgy days, but now I understand my thinking and know that they will pass. I am truly afraid of having a panic attack on my wedding day or on the flight to our honeymoon, but you know what? That will pass, too. 

I'll probably go through periods of panic disorder throughout my life in the way that lots of people go through periods of depression.

I know I've written about this subject a lot, but I guess I wanted to write about it again because I thought that maybe someone out there would need to hear that it's ok to struggle with these things.

A lot of people who seem normal have issues with anxiety.

A lot of people need medication for it at some point in their lives. 

It is possible to deal with it.

Good therapists are your friends.

And in the end, looking to the Lord is better than anything.

The wedding is making me crazy.

This is going to be a full-blown no-apologies wedding post.

Why?

Because it's my life right now.

I want to start by apologizing to every woman whose registry I peered at with some judgment, and whose wedding shower I attended with cynicism.

A $50 crockpot? What?

A $400 vacuum? WHY?

Nice silverware? WHO USES THAT?

Hello from the other side, friends.

Dear ladies, I now understand the hours that you spent laboring over that registry, lamenting prices and feeling self-conscious about what other people would buy for you. I, too, would like to have a nice dutch oven. I, too, put four different sets of plates on two different registries before I finally settled on one--which was then discontinued. I, TOO, am saving bedding for last because then I may not have the energy to waste indecisive hours in front of my computer screen, only to choose overpriced sheets and a scratchy comforter.

I used to look forward to the day when I could register for and receive wedding gifts.

I didn't realize that it's hard to set up a house without knowing what house you're going to live in.

(We aren't going to talk about houses right now.)

These days, I ping-pong between giddy, super chill, and VORTEX OF WEDDING DARKNESS.

Tapering off my Zoloft may be a contributing factor--but that's an entirely different blog post.

Here are some examples of my emotional fields right now.

Going to my wedding hair trial: general sadness that my hair isn't long, thick, and fake enough to look like something from pinterest.

First dress fitting: heart-pounding excitement because I AM BEAUTIFUL.

Browsing department stores to look at registry possibilities: a sensation akin to my brain being an overstuffed paper shredder.

Deciding what the wedding cake should look like: anger at myself for caring so much about the design for a piece of food.

Looking at pictures of our honeymoon location: Warm fuzzies with proportionate panic over getting on a plane again.

Trimming and tweaking the guest list: UTTER DESPAIR.

Invitations: I can't.

I'm not a complicated bride. My dress is from David's, my cake is from a tiny place in town, I have registries at Walmart, Amazon and Bed Bath & Beyond, our invitations will be ordered with the next Vistaprint coupon, and we're eating barbeque at the reception.

But few things are simple when it comes to this kind of affair.

The world becomes a new place when you go into wedding mode. When I walk into people's houses now, I examine their kitchen appliances. I notice flowers and know more of their names. I'm attracted to anything that's powder blue and peach. Cakes float behind my closed eyelids when I go to sleep at night. I'm afraid to talk to people who I haven't seen in a long time because then I might have to put them on the guest list. 

But I will say this--the NUMBER ONE thing about wedding planning--the absolute bestest best part of the mess--is how it has changed our relationship. Making decisions with Josh was uncomfortable at first, and is still uncomfortable at times, but it brings us closer together in a cool way. It's something you don't really understand until you begin to become one unit with someone else.
Sure, Josh is my best friend, but he's not my best friend in a way that Morgan or Lisa or Audrey or anybody else is. He's my partner, which is better than a best friend. It's a strange, great thing.

Our first date was one year ago yesterday.
I know, it's not very much time.
But sometimes, you just know. God seems to be very clear in his call for us right now, and the timing is sweeeeet.

Anyway. Here are some pictures from the celebration of our first-date-iversary.
Enjoy our lovey-ness.

And this was the "wonton" that came on my Asian salad. Just a warning to anybody who may go to Cheddar's and consider it.  Nope. Nopity, nope, nope, nope:

I miss the bad kids.

Remember last year?

The horrible, terrible year?

The year of tearful Fridays and 60-hour weeks and anxiety so bad that my legs often locked up, making me look like a peg-legged sailor?

It was a rough year.

But over the past two weeks I've felt sharp pangs of loss because, gosh darnit, I miss the kids.

I don't know why it's hitting hard now; maybe because this time last year was filled with a lot of sentiment.

No, I DO NOT miss referrals, bullying reports, parent emails, and constant emotional triage...but if you offered to let me take each of those kids out for ice cream, I wouldn't hesitate to say yes. 

Why? Because with all of the crazy came a love and loyalty that you don't find in every class.

So I miss them.

I miss the kid who made me fresh-squeezed orange juice from his breakfast fruit cup and brought me chocolate milk from the cafeteria every day.

I miss the kid who really wanted to get me a mug for Christmas.

I miss the kid who hated teachers, but wanted to tell me mundane things about his life because he knew that I cared.

I miss the kid who danced with me and sang "Keep Holding On" after a horrid day.

I miss the kid who said he'd punch the principal if I ever got fired.

I miss the kid who threw down all of his football gear and leapt up the bleachers when he saw that I'd come to his game.

I miss the kid who wrote to me about her life in her weekly journal assignment, even though she wouldn't talk much in class.

I miss the kid who gave a very convincing argument in Social Studies that made half the class think that Hitler wasn't so bad.

I miss the kid who always fessed up about saying bad words.

I miss the kid who pretended to be a t-rex with me.

I miss the kids who stayed after school to help me cover the walls before T-CAP, and then uncovered the poster of Abraham Lincoln's face so that he could stare at everyone while they were testing (though, YES, I covered him back up before the test).
I miss the kid who wrote a story about Josh and me getting married during the time of the dinosaurs.

I miss the camaraderie that came with that bad class.

I miss the day we decided that our class name would be "Love's Lil' Gremlins".

I miss the behavior talks--particularly after a sub day ("We were terrible! We all deserve demerits!").

I miss telling the kids to have compassion and empathy, and then watching them have it (if only for a little while).

I miss the great discussions about how history wasn't fair.

I miss group hugs.

I miss their demented, Hot-Topic sort of humor and obsession with angsty teen bands.

I couldn't do that year again, but I am so very glad it happened, and that it was filled with enough love to miss.

Engagement is weird.

Scratch that.
The beginning isn't all that weird. It's exactly what you'd expect--a couple days of glitter, butterflies, and warm fuzzies. A thousand congratulations. More facebook notifications than you know what to do with. It's like your birthday and Christmas came at once and tiny fluffy puppies miraculously rained down out of the sky.

After that comes some wedding panic, which is also an expected feeling.
VENUE
DRESS
COLORS
FLOWERS
FOOD
MUSIC
FREAKING GUEST LIST

But once the big things get checked off the wedding list--that's when things get weird. Because then it settles in that holy crap I'm actually going to live with this person as long as we're both alive, and we're going to have houses and babies and teenagers and disagreements and vacations together. 

And at this point of the game, the two of you actually have to start making big decisions together. 
As a single unit.
Where you once simply had to decide on what to do and where to eat dinner, you must now decide on things like
a phone plan,
a car insurance plan,
where you're going to live,
where you'll go to church,
how your money will be spent,
when and how many kids you'll have,
how you'll keep from having those children until it's time,
what you'll do about the holidays,
what your future goals are,
and
so on,
and
so forth.

Like me, you may know (or have known) that these were all things that would come up before marriage. But it's one thing to KNOW that you'll have to make these decisions, and another to go through the process of making them.

You really get to know yourself AND your significant other in these decisions, in a way that you'll never know anybody else. It's like digging into each other's souls with sharp little shovels.
I've never done that before.
It's a weird thing.

Josh and I are more solid than a lot of engaged couples, and even we still have cold feet moments.
Why?
Because we know this is a big deal, and it's scary.

Every day, we will have to sacrifice our desires for the good of our sacred union.
We will come face-to-face with our selfishness.
We will have to swallow I-told-you-sos and Why-can't-you-justs and I-deserves.
That's all noble and whatnot, but isn't it easy to pick at and criticize people you know really well?
I don't know about you, but I'm super good at finding the flaws of others, and I'm also good at correcting them because I'm a teacher and that's what I do.

Josh and I have always had pretty healthy, open communication, but in the last two months of making these kinds of decisions I feel that we've really gotten to know each other.
And guess what.
Our brains work differently.
Our baggage is gross.
And even clear communication isn't always crystal.

It's hard to describe the shift that's taking place in our relationship, other than to say that it's deep, it's good (though it doesn't always feel that way), and it's weird.
We are both, however, becoming more excited about the marriage than we are about the wedding.

Pretty sure that's the way it's supposed to be.

Now, here are some examples of our great communication:

Why weirdos with snuggies shouldn't have blogs.

It's time for a really great story about when I was a college sophomore and was foolish enough to think that nobody read my blog.

Yes, I was a nineteen-year-old with a blog, and it was a crazy-random collection of all the spastic things that I was doing with my friends. It was also a free-for-all on my thoughts and opinions because I was certain that no more than five people were interested in what it said.

The beginning of sophomore year (and that blog) overlapped with an epic breakup, after which I was determined to prove my independence in a way that would prevent anyone sane from dating me. So I asked for a snuggie for Christmas, and I named it Jacob Snuggie because I was really into Twilight at the time. I even went as far as making a facebook page for it and putting us in a relationship, because, you know, that's HILARIOUS.

WHY DID I DO THAT. WHY DID ANYBODY LET ME DO THAT.

Anyway.

Imagine my surprise when I returned to college after Christmas to find out that the boy sitting next to me in Doctrine class was named Jacob Snuggs.

I am not kidding.

And he had shaggy blonde hair which was ENTIRELY my jam at the time.

Thinking myself safe, I blogged about the irony of this for all five of my readers.

Mentioned how much I'd like to, you know, snuggle with him.

A few weeks later, he cut his hair and I found out that he was engaged. Of course, I had to blog about the tragedy of that, too.

I even used the words "long, majestic, honey-gold locks" because I don't blog halfway.

The following paragraph in that same entry included some whining about my weight.

Not long after, he moved to a seat at the back of class. I couldn't figure out why.

I spent that summer interning in Uganda. Towards the end of the internship, my teammate--who I had not been friends with before this trip--and I had the "first impressions" conversation that all girls like to have after they've gotten to know each other really well.

Her: "Yeah, I thought you'd be a total weirdo because of that blog you wrote."

Me: "What."

She went on to tell me how she'd heard about those specific blog entries through the grapevine, and about how he had read the blog--at which point I was fairly certain that all the popular people at Covenant knew about it, because he was in that circle and my college was tiny.

Later, I went back to my blog to check the phrases that people had entered to search for my blog, and there were things like "laura love jacob snuggs blog" and "laura love snuggs" and "all your dignity is gone you sad and shameful weirdo you". 

Then I found out how to block people from finding it, and I stayed single for the rest of college.

Moral of the story: 

Don't do that. Don't ever do that.

(Though I'm fairly certain one of those popular people will magically find this blog post, too. Then again, I've not got much pride left to lose.)

The end.

Another Wedding Post: Crazy Dreams and Identity Crisis

The crazy wedding dreams are officially in full swing.

My last few sleeps have been riddled with veils, bouquets, and things I have forgotten.

Example:

Some texts Josh got first thing yesterday morning.

I'd also watched the horrific bloody episode of Downton Abbey just before bed, which didn't help.

Everyone told me I would have these dreams. It's perfectly normal that my brain would take my subconscious wedding anxiety and run with it.

To the African Savannah.

Of course, who wouldn't have anxiety leading up to their wedding? Marriage is the biggest decision you will (probably) ever make. You (usually) only get one wedding day.  Only a fraction of people getting married are actually good at event planning. 

And Wedding Land is a giant, confusing maze.

Example:

I went bridesmaid dress shopping last Friday with a couple of my ladies. When we got up to the counter after choosing dresses, we were told that it would take SEVENTEEN WEEKS for their dresses to come in. That's mid-May. February just started yesterday.

Why do things in Wedding Land work differently than things in Real Life?

Why does my brain feel like it's full of feathers?

Why do I see flowers and skirts when I close my eyes before bed?

Right now it's easy to choose to think about the wedding rather than the marriage. I've heard this before and thought DUH, but the struggle is real, y'all. Not that I don't think about how I'll be married forever afterwards, but a wedding seems more tangible and immediately concerning. 

(And fun. I mean, PARTY, DRESSES, DANCING, CAKE. Wedding =  cake. Marriage = crockpot meals. What would you daydream about?)

Then things happen to remind me that I'm in the process of becoming united with another person.

Like, a full-grown human being.

Not a pet or even a baby, but a man who will call the final shots for him, me, and however many little humans we have.

Example:

Last week, my phone began giving signs of imminent death. It was old and I'd known its end was coming, but I'd been hoping it would wait until July.

Oh well.

It was literally swelling up, which is never good.

Josh and I thought that we might as well start talking phone plans and budget, because now would be a good time to consolidate our plans.

I thought this would be somewhat simple, and it was...not.

There wasn't so much conflict as there was the realization that both of us had different ideas about how this would work (Finally, a money disagreement! WOOHOO!!!).

What we would've done as individuals wasn't what was best for us together, and we had normal miscommunication and minor hurt feelings.

It was eventually resolved via a cheap replacement from the Apple store and Josh deciding to hop onto my plan (we think, at least), but it gave me a moment of pause.

A moment to ruminate on the enormity of the step I'm about to take.

I'm not just changing my last name.

I'm turning in the independent-lady identity that I've been working so hard on the last six years. 

Josh and I will make decisions together, yes, but in the end, he will follow the Lord and be the head of our house--or apartment--or whatever. As dad put it, "Two people on one horse--somebody has to be the leader."

I didn't realize how much I like to be the leader until the dumb issue with the cell phone. 

And--GEEZ--I'll have to start sharing.

Guys, I love my big bed. I love stretching out ALL OVER IT. I love solitude in the morning. I love occasionally buying my own healthy cereal and fancy chocolate and being the only person eating it. I love the ability to go where I want when I want to.

When I get married, I'll have to share my sheets, my mornings, and maybe even my chocolate.

And Josh is a sheet thief.*

There's a difference between knowing this and really feeling it. I'm grieving over the fact that, after saying the words, "I, Laura Love, take thee, Joshua Davis, to be my lawfully wedded husband," I will be giving up a significant part of who I am. 

I won't even be Miss Love anymore.

Laura Davis will be a great name (albeit a common one) and the change is entirely worth it (nobody will be able to find me online!).

Marriage will be sanctifying.

I obviously need that.

Josh, too, will be giving up a lot to be my husband. His independent identity. His ability to go where he wants, when he wants to. His ramen noodle dinners and closet space. 

(I was going to add "his sheets", but he still won't be sharing those.)

Marriage will have so. many. great. times.

But I think it's ok to savor my final days as Laura Love.

*note: I don't know this from PERSONAL EXPERIENCE--just Josh making it abundantly clear.

Just Call Me Laura Sparks

Exciting news on the wedding front: I have found my dress!

After seven shopping excursions and over thirty dresses, my third trip to David's Bridal proved to be a success. 

It was a strange experience to step in front of the mirror and KNOW that was the dress. 

I felt like the prettiest princess to ever look like a cloud.

...I don't even know what that last sentence means.

Anyway, mom and I were both very direct about it when we knew, and to avoid stares from the hordes of people in the store with us (including the lady in the next dressing room who had ELEVEN people with her) I didn't ring the bell. Sorry, sales associate who was with us.

I was hungry and ready to be done.

Now it's time to set my sights and stress further down the wedding list!

However, instead of writing another post about wedding stuff (don't worry--there will be more) (BTW HOW ARE FLOWERS SO EXPENSIVE)(THEY DIE AFTER A WEEK)(THEY ARE PRICEY DYING PLANTS), I thought it would be fun to reminisce and write a post about the beginning of my relationship with Joshua Cameron Davis.

Everyone knows that Audrey started it with an embarrassing facebook message showcasing me in Russian fortuneteller garb. Josh told her he wasn't interested, but then he stalked me and decided that he actually was, which led to two weeks of messaging and texting.

Now, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a dude playing around. It was obvious to me that there was a spark and I was impatient as heck for him to do something about it.

I mean, if you're going to take so much of my time and energy, at least compensate me with food.

I finally sent him this:

(Back then, Josh used a lot of smiley faces because he was so daggum excited to be texting me.)

 I got the message and threw my fists in the air in victory.

A REAL, LIVE DATE.

I HAD MADE SOMEONE ASK ME ON A REAL, LIVE DATE.

Saturday rolled around and I went through the classic problem of what to wear.

I was meeting him at Cheddar's.

Casual?

Nice?

Casual?

Nice?

Screw it, I'm going casual with Audrey's nice sandals.

What I didn't count on was rod run traffic, which made me an hour and a half late. I tried to encourage Josh by texting him whenever my car was at a standstill, but he was half convinced he was being stood up. By the time I arrived, he'd been through two glasses of water.

I sidled up to the booth nervously and waved hello.

He jumped out of his seat, hugged me, and giggled.

Then we took turns going to the bathroom, which was when I texted Emma to tell her that OMG HE'S SO CUTE.

While we ate, we talked about travel, theology, and our jobs. Josh twisted his straw wrapper into nervous oblivion and I couldn't figure out what to do with my forearms. By the time we finished, it was too late to go bowling as he had planned, so we decided to go walking through the rod-runners because that's romantic.

However, when we got outside, it was raining.

Josh got nervous because he thought maybe I didn't like rain, but I told him, "I don't really care about my hair," (which was 75% a lie), and his eyes lit up. Off we went, sidestepping puddles and laughing at rod runners. We talked about family, dogs, and homeschooling, and we kept our hands in our pockets.

At the end of the night, he walked me to my car, gave me TWO hugs, and the world's most awkward back-of-the-head kiss. Then he was escaping across the parking lot to his car, and I was left trying to decide how I felt about it all.

DID I LIKE HIM?

WAS HE CREEPY?

WOULD WE GET MARRIED?

I stayed up til 2:00 texting Emma and Morgan about this.

I decided we needed another shot.

A few days later, we walked around the Patriot Park and had dinner at Chik-fil-a.

That's when I really started to fall for Josh.

He was nervous and dorky and told great stories about his childhood. We used accents and he talked to the ducks. 

He basically spoke my love language.

After the third date, which was that weekend, he met my parents.

Dad's first question was about what Josh planned to do with his life. The second was about gun control. I noticed that Josh was laughing more nervously than usual and he couldn't figure out what to do with his hands. 

He finally made it through and even stayed late that night to play board games with Audrey and me.

I was truly enamored.

The next Monday, he came back over and we took an evening walk around the neighborhood. He told me about the time he hacked a Plank out of a block of wood, and I laughed so hard I could barely breathe. We stopped for a while to look at the stars. He kissed my cheek. I held his hand. It was all Nicholas Sparks-y, except that nobody was dying.

That week, I prayed for a relationship with Josh Davis. God was giving me a peace about dating him, which nearly freaked me out because generally my prayers about boys are like this:

"Dear God,

I really like _____.

Can I date _____?

No?

Why not?

This has to be a mind trick.

I must not be hearing you correctly.

_____ is great!

Why doesn't _____ like me?

I WILL NEVER FIND SOMEONE AS GREAT AS ____.

Are you sure?

Let me recite this list of great qualities about ____.

.......

This is upsetting.

Fine.

I don't get to date ____.

Thank you for my singlehood.

You know what's best.

Good luck to ____.

Amen.

...but are you sure?"

This time, there was hardly a struggle. It was ok to date Josh.

YES.

When he picked me up that Saturday (with roses) (while my aunt, uncle, and cousins were all in the front yard), I was wearing this cute teacher-y getup.

He took me to The Island, where we ate, ran through the mirror maze, and rode the ferris wheel. When he finally asked me to be his girlfriend, I glanced at our clasped hands and said, "We're kind of already there, aren't we?"

He said that he wanted a Christ-centered relationship, which was almost as romantic to me as Mr. Darcy walking through the fog to tell Elizabeth how ardently he loved her.

Of course, it wasn't all stars and fairy dust. The ferris wheel was making dying whale noises and Josh smelled like the onions that had come on his burger at dinner. But it was wonderful enough for me.

Bla, bla, bla, the rest is history, we're getting married, and so on and so forth. 

The Holidays and the Amygdala

December and the first half of January kicked my butt.

It started when Christmas break did, with a bunch of shopping, baking, and friendly gatherings.
The whirlwind that was Christmas Eve--with church service, the Hutchinson Christmas party, Franklin Christmas, and the annual Love sisters reading-of-Christmas-stories-with-accents.
Then Christmas came, with days of subsequent events.
Visiting with my grandmother a couple of times.
The Davis family gathering.
The Love family gathering.
The Hammer family gathering.
Two more rounds of wedding dress shopping.
What.

By the time it was over, Josh had left for trip to Thailand, and I wasn't going to see him again until the middle of January.
I hardly had any time to be sad about that before it was time to go to Lisa's house for New Year's.
Mary Claire and I rode together, which was great because I hadn't seen her in at least two years. For for days, we ate a bunch of food, blew party horns, went roller skating, checked out a new mall, watched a movies, and finally beat Pandemic.

The day after getting back from Lisa's, I hit the ground running back at school.
For two days.
Then it was time for a family vacation to Disney World because Daniel lives there and he didn't get to come home for Christmas.
The following photos are all the behind the scenes non-fancy pictures that dad wasn't taking.

(Seriously, though. Can we talk about Repunzel's bathroom and how I used it twice even though I didn't have to pee?)

We went to Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Magic Kingdom, as well as Animal Kingdom Lodge, the Polynesian, Disney Springs, and Disney Quest. Daniel beat Audrey and me at Settlers of Catan three times. I finally bought the poptarts I'd been craving for months. We spent a day visiting with my grandfather. I listened to Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice on audiobook. A lot of knitting was accomplished.

We did (and ate) a LOT.

I still have panic disorder, right?
Right.
I had been dreading this season since, I don't know, October, because it sounded about as hectic as another month in Europe. My counselor and I spent an entire session planning out how to deal with the stress and not freak out.
Back in August and September I was still afraid of restaurants and Walmart, but now I was going to Disney World.
Ugh.
Who am I.
Anyway.

I obviously made it, and here were my coping strategies:

1. Positive visualization and self-talk. Because what's the point of mulling over the possibility of having a terrible time and then definitely having a terrible time?
2. Deep breathing. Like, fake-pregnant-lady belly breathing.
3. Finding a mental happy place. I used to think that was a joke, but now I'm all about it. My happy place can be anywhere I want it to be, gosh darn it, and if I want to go to my happy mental princess castle, and I can do just that.
4. Smothering myself in essential oils.
5. Leaning into my feelings. If my body is telling me to cry, then CRY, DANGIT.
6. Prayer, because the rest is pointless without it.

Zoloft is helpful, too.
There were only two panic incidences during that trip. The first was when the Haunted Mansion ride got stuck next to a creepy dead bride, which almost triggered an attack ("Til DEATH do us paaaart....for better or for WORSSSE..."). But the worst semi-attack was on our way back, as we went through St. Augustine. It was lunchtime and being in the car sucks, so as soon as we got to the visitor center I let myself have the cry I wanted and things went uphill from there. We ate lunch and I was good.

I've learned that it's alright to embrace my scared feelings. If I validate them and take care of them, they leave a lot more quickly.
As my counselor taught me, "Hug your amygdala."

These three weeks showed me that I don't have to be in paralyzing fear of my anxiety.
I'm ok.
God provided me with coping skills.

However, routine is nice and I have gladly taken it back.
Amygdala and Josh are happy to have it back, too.