If Happy-Ever-After's Did Exist..

As soon as you get engaged people rush to congratulate you and tell you what a happy and romantic time "engagement" is--let me tell you, that is not true.  Maybe if you have a year and a half engagement period and plenty of time to sit around it might be a bit less stressful, but overall engagement is hard.  Trying to please everyone with your decisions, trying to have the wedding that you actually want, trying to stay out of debt and still have a beautiful day, on top of all the legalism involved in maintaining your current "dating" relationship, it's just not very fun.  But there is a silver lining.

On another level, being engaged is like having something small and wonderful happen to you every single day.  I can't speak for everyone else, but for me it usually hits just before I fall asleep, or sometimes first thing when I wake up.  That one tingling little moment where I remember that in x amount of days I will be married to my best friend, forever, in our own little place, free to do whatever we want, (and away from the evils of wedding planning).  That is the moment that makes all the stress worth it!

"Jenny and me was like peas and carrots"

This past Sunday was James and my official 1-year anniversary, despite any of our other milestones in between.  This is actually pretty startling to most people's ears, but that's when we can tell our real friends from our judgmental friends.  It boils my blood every time I hear people imposing their own opinions on what is an acceptable period of time to be together before getting married.  Especially from our "Christian" peers.  Every day I have customers telling me that we need to just live together for a year before we decide if this is what's right for us, or that we are just too young to know what we want.  Don't even get me started on that bit!  But if I may, I would like to clarify that we have known since day 10 that we wanted to get married, and we have been dating "in light of" that the entire time.  We have been extremely careful with our physical and emotional boundaries, we have always been planning and budgeting for our future, and we have been staying in the Word and trusting God to confirm our timing, as opposed to those around us.

[diary snippet from last year]

While I get the pleasure of being James' first girlfriend, many people know I have had other relationships in the past.  If there's anything to be gained from them, it's knowing what I want and don't want, but more importantly knowing what I deserve.  James is the most amazing guy I have ever met, and he is perfect to me.  It's so crazy when you find that one person in life that fits you like a glove; who isn't your twin but who compliments your personality and meets you on your own "level."  I know so many of my friends who could have never dated James, but for me he's exactly what I needed.  We have some of the funniest, most honest conversations I think I've ever had, we are naturally inclined to such similar thought processes (to the extent that he has become my personal mind-sperlunker), we have the same goals and direction for our future, and we seriously love every minute we have together.  In the past I've always noticed that too much time together eventually makes you snippy and irritable, but I don't think we've ever experienced that.  We would tell you it's because of our foundation in the Word and our commitment to being renewed by it, but I also think we are just two peas in a pod.

So Sunday was spent doing things we wanted to do and needed to do--mostly, rest.  We went to church, had lunch with a group of our friends, then headed to downtown Disney to take in the beautiful afternoon and leave with a cute build-a-bear we conveniently named Jaycub (like Jacob, but bear style).    We had a delicious date night to Kobe's Japanese Steakhouse (if you haven't been, it's a really cool restaurant much like Benihana's where they cook your food right in front of you) and then loaded up on sweets and snacks before catching the solar eclipse and watching Avatar in-home-movie-theater style.  Nothing too fancy, but no regrets here.

I really really love my best friend.  I'm sad when I see other couples who aren't as lucky as us, or when people take each other for granted.  I'm so glad that life took us both on our own journey to get us to this place where we are now, together.  We're blessed, to say the least..