and plans change

We’ve been waiting for a while, now. Waiting and planning and hoping. And it’s difficult to believe that it wasn’t all in vain.

Our wedding venue has decided to cancel, six weeks before what is supposed to be the best day of our lives. Everyone has his or her own opinion about how we move forward. Unfortunately, I’m still a sensitive middle child who wants everyone to be happy, wants everyone to think I’m making the right choices, wants everyone to think I’m handling this like a champ.

On my scroll through Instagram this morning, I was reminded of other people’s hardships. One post in particular was from a mom whose three-year-old daughter is terminally ill. She is grieving all of the memories she will never have with her little girl. But me? I still get to make memories, they’ll just look different and it’s really okay if they don’t measure up to everyone’s standard. Perspective is a bittersweet companion, because empathy means I want to weep with those who are weeping from sorrows much heavier than my own. Jesus, help them.

So plans change. Hoping and dreaming and moving forward does not.

apartment 15B

What do you do when media and politicians push their agenda to convince you to see a changed world—a world transformed for the worse—yet aside from arrows on the ground, cancelled appointments, and moderate mass hysteria, your world feels very much as it always has?  It stings, maybe just a little, the first time someone mentions this will most likely affect the most important day of your life. But maybe you’re an optimist and “logically” this can’t go on that long. We’re not experiencing the Bubonic Plague or the Black Death here. But then the unrest continues and more people, more friends, more family lose hope that everything could possibly turn out okay. So what do you do?

The eye twitch that left in February is back.

There is no gym to burn off steam at.

America’s Next Top Model can only distract a person for so long.

So far, a total of three mail-ordered bras will not work for under a wedding dress and cannot be returned.

Who knows if a July wedding in New York will even be possible?

Who knows if going to school in September will even be possible?

There is only a certain amount of sanity a person can maintain while locked inside a studio apartment for over a month.

So Tanner and I take turns reminding each other that we’re staying in motion. That we are getting married in July regardless of whether or not it’s a party. That we have done every step we can do for school this fall.  That every aspect of our lives right now is a firm reminder that God is the only one who actually has a say in where we go and how and that’s what we want.

My sister reminds me that it’s still okay to cry and be a little stressed and not always feel peachy.

My best friend commiserates beautifully.

It’s going to work out the way it’s supposed to.

But that doesn’t mean my eye isn’t going to twitch for the next two months.

And that’s okay.