friends

The past month has felt like a whirlwind. I've been out of town twice for weddings in Arkansas, Mandar has been out one weekend, we had friends in Fernandina for a weekend, and then Mandar has been working nonstop. We've barely seen each other the past 6 weeks. While I have had lots of alone time, I have spent my "free time" in my yard doing lots of yardwork.

Alone outside, sweating in the heat, focused on things sprouting up and growing has resulted in lots of extra thinking. It gave me the opportunity to begin really narrowing down on what is most important to me about this next adventure in my life. What is the most important thing about this wedding to me. Yes, the most obvious answer should be I am marrying the man I love, etc. etc. But it feels more than that. Whether or not we were getting married, we would be together. There has to be more.

We are two very different people. We are two different cultures. We come from two different places. We look at the world differently. Somehow in all of that confusion we found common ground and have merged into two people that match each other. If we were a book, we would be one of those books that has several different parts in it. Part One: Mandar's story. Part Two: Madeline's story. Part Three: the point at which the stories cross each other and begin to influence the other's outcome. This is the part I really want to honor in our wedding. Yes, it is about us, but we've been an us for awhile. It's about our two stories coming together and culminating into Part Four. Our friends and family who've been around us and influenced us throughout our lives are coming together in one place. It feels very surreal.

(Because I do have to leave for work now and can't keep typing,) the most important things that I want to happen are all in relation to and to honor those people in our lives. My mind has been going over and over the confusing process of bringing and merging our two cultures together without sacrificing us in the process. I have so many more questions that need to be answered.



Oh, and I found my Christian wedding dress.