but hopefully still a good person.

We are 17 days away from tying the knot, as the kids say. People who don’t know me very well and hear this go “oh my god, how are you so calm?” Because I’m more nervous about taking a however-long flight to Thailand? Because when you eliminate the need to worry about color-coded napkins, you save a lot of energy? Because I’m just not?

Thinking back over the course of this blog, I had all intentions of making myself care about a wedding by poking fun at all the wacked-out shit people say when you’re getting married and lack a bridal gene (or just don’t squeal). But I realized as I went on that most people were pretty down with us doing our own thing.

However, the process has reiterated some points to me. One, I am nothing if not inconsistent. (Mmm triple negatives.) I don’t write every day, I don’t blog every day, and that level of non-dedication to one single topic has proven, among other things, that I should probably not go on to doctorate-level studies, and has me questioning my self-image as a writer. But part of me was freaking out a little that if I’m this inconsistent about blogging about my wedding, something I’m supposed to care about deeply, than what the hell am I doing getting married? And, that reminded me that once again, I care more about the marriage than the party. I’m more excited about spending my life growing and being with John–something I knew long before we even got engaged–than any of the outward markers that “prove” that to the world. I have never been good with those “outward markers.”

The other thing that this process has brought to my attention is my lack of a central circle of friends. On and off since probably kindergarten, I’ve wrestled with knowing that I don’t do well in groups. I’ve momentarily had strong groups of friends, that only fall apart later. This is not to say I don’t have close friends, but increasingly, I’m aware of how fractured my friend groups are. I take joy in that because all of my friends are so different, but at the same time, it can make for some really awkward and strange group interaction (maybe, like, the BBQ in October…). In looking for information and support online, I found great groups–only to realize that I don’t interact frequently enough with them to benefit fully, and/or care enough about online dynamics to put forth the effort to interact. Same with past blogs I’ve done. But it really hit home when my mom was talking about throwing me a shower in September. All the showers I’ve been to focus mostly on that core group of girlfriends that every bride seems to have. And while I’ve had several friends offer to plan something, I politely declined. Now my mom really wants to do something, and while I’m not particularly thrilled, it means a lot to me that she wants to do it so I figured, sure. I know of lots of people who fly cross-country for these things–engagement parties, showers, etc.–but it all feels superfluous to me. When I go visit friends or attend these things, I feel really on the outside since I’m not part of the “core”, however close I may be to the person. But now I think I might have a few people mad at me for NOT doing these things, and NOT inviting them to shit, even though they couldn’t come or it would be a hassle for them to come. In the end, if I just had a core group of girls, all of this would be so much easier.

It’s one of those weird gender role things that heterosexual weddings and marriage seem to reinforce. Whenever we hang out with the marrieds we know, the room will tend to split along male/female lines. The girls press me for wedding details!!!!!!!!!! and they don’t know how to respond when I don’t know how to answer that.  The guys think seem to I’m a bit of an endearing tomboy for not being like their wives/fiancees. And John claims this doesn’t happen, only sometimes he admits it does, and he doesn’t really know what to do, and neither do I, and then we’re this weird little diatomic entity spinning in our own orbit.

So what am I trying to say here?  I don’t really know, honestly.  The past year has made for interesting sociological and anthropological observations, both online and in real life.  I don’t know if I’m going to continue blogging here, or on another site.  I share JP’s recent blog-break reasoning, in that I feel like sometimes I spend too much time blogging rather than writing, but other times I feel like the only way I write is when I blog.  And ultimately,  in a complete reversal of how I’ve felt the past few years, I feel like there’s too much living to do right now to spend a significant amount of time holed up writing.

At least right now.