For time and for all Eternity

Today I marry my best friend, my dream man, and the love of my life. The day before today was absolutely insane, but we made it. We're here. At 10 o'clock this morning, we will be sealed for time and for all Eternity in the temple of our God, to be husband and wife from this life and into the next and forever more. I can barely explain what I'm feeling, my heart has never beat this fast, and I've never been happier in my Life. At one of my bridal showers, someone asked me if I had any advice or perspective on marriage. I couldn't think of anything at the time, but since then, I've come up with a very clear answer.
My advice to you is this: trust God and in His timing. It won't make sense all the time, or even any of the time, but everything will become clearer as you trust Him and keep moving forward and stay close to the Spirit. Trust in your Patriarchal Blessing. Zach is everything that was described in my Patriarchal Blessing and more, and I'm so blessed to be able to call him my husband today. It's strange, I still don't feel old enough to be getting married, but at the same time, I recognize that I'm older than a lot of my friends were when they got married. So, I'm not too worried.
Let me tell you a few things about Zach that have made me sure that I want to marry him.
First: the first time we met, officially, was on our first date. We had met briefly before then, but hadn't really gotten to know each other. But on our first date, there was something about him that took down every wall I'd ever had against relationships and men and everything. As soon as I'd gotten in his car for our date, I knew something about him was different. It was unlike any other date I'd ever been on, and still, every date and every time I'm with him, it just feels like home. Because he is home.
Second: Back in August, I'd had to check myself into a psych ward because I wasn't doing well emotionally at all, and had become extremely suicidal. I hadn't told him anything about this until we had officially started dating, but one night, we went out to dinner, and I told him the truth about why I'd been in the hospital, and he said two words: "I know." He didn't have an exact explanation for why he knew what he knew, but apparently he knew I'd bee suicidal and that was why I went to the hospital, but he's thought none the less of me even knowing perhaps my deepest insecurity.
Third: This past week was extremely rough, I'd been getting major cold feet, wondering if I really wanted to get married, or if I wanted that responsibility, and I actually ended up having a couple major panic attacks about it on Sunday. And his reaction to said panic attacks was another reason why I'm positive that yes, I do want to get married, and yes I do want the extra responsibility, especially if it's for him.

Last night was the last night I'll ever go to bed as a single woman, and I'm completely alright with that. I don't know everything about marriage, or what our marriage will be like, but I do know that I love him, whole heartedly and completely with ever fiber of my being. I thought I understood love, and what it meant to be in love, but it is nothing like I expected it to be. It is so much more. So I ask that you keep yourself worthy of this kind of special, unique love, and never settle for anything less. No matter how attractive or charming a man may seem on the outside, what's really important is how he makes you feel on the inside. I've found my forever Prince Charming, and my hope is that when you're looking for yours, you'll look for someone who treats you like your father treats me. Someone who makes you happy, and not only happy emotionally, but spiritually. Someone who understands you. Someone who is willing to sacrifice for you, but still maintains a healthy level of independence. Someone you love so much that the thought of being apart in the afterlife makes you sick. Maybe not literally, but I know that's how I've felt. I don't want to live without him, and in his profession, even if he falls in the line of duty, I will go about the remainder of my days eager to be back in his arms when I cross the veil.
My search for Prince Charming is over, but yours has just begun. May you trust God and be blessed with a man as amazing as your father, if not moreso.
All my love,
Mom

I love you too, but I don't like you all the time

Today was an interesting day. I don't want to say it was the first time Zach and I have ever fought, because we really didn't fight, but it was the only time so far where I've ever felt genuinely mad and offended at him. I hadn't been sleeping well all week, all the wedding stress finally caught up to me, so today I didn't want to do much of anything. We ended up not doing much, but he had a lot of energy so he wanted to go out and do something. After letting me have a few hours of nothing, we decided to go to Costco to get an idea of what we were looking at for the desserts or whatever we're doing at the reception. I showed him the idea that my mom and I had come up with, and when we had calculated the cost of the whole thing, which I had already done, by the way, during a conversation with my mom earlier this week, he gave me this look that said "Are you serious?" and it just drove a knife all the way in to my heart. So then of course, I went on the defensive, and when he was like "We could get it catered for less than that." I immediately retorted "Oh really? From where? Have you looked?" He didn't have exact numbers, but even if he'd had them, I probably wouldn't have listened. I was too upset to even want to look at him. We spent the next probably 30 minutes barely saying a word to each other, but we ended up picking up a movie from redbox and some food and ice cream on the way home, and when we got to his apartment, I put the ice cream away, got the Sprite out of the fridge and started eating my sandwich that we'd picked up. He was busy looking at some mail he'd got that day, and I had no idea what to do, because I'd already apologized a ton for getting upset, now I mostly just felt bad for getting mad at him because I knew he didn't mean to hurt my feelings. I just didn't want my emotionalness to get on his nerves. But, he surprised me, again. I was looking down, trying to avoid his gaze, but he came over and gently tugged on my sleeve. I looked at him and he held his arms out, a warm smile on his face. I was feeling emotionally raw, but I put my arms around him in return, and he said "I will always love you, and I'm sorry I made you upset today." To nobody's surprise, my eyes got all watery again and I bawled again, amidst saying things like "I'm sorry I lost my temper." "I just feel really bad now." and then I explained that the day before, while I had been out picking out the flowers for my bouquet, my grandma's friend that was helping had said something that made me feel like an absolute idiot, and she had given me the same kind of look that he had just a little while ago. I guess that kind of explains a lot of my sleeping in this week, all the wedding stress came to a head and I was trying to not have a meltdown all week, but there you go. But, the main point I wanted to make in writing this whole thing was the fact that, despite the fact that I was mad at him, and he was probably also kind of mad at me, he still made it a priority to make sure I knew he loved me. He took the time to get my attention and give me a hug and let me bawl into his shoulder for the umpteenth time. That sort of thing is what really makes a difference in a couple, I think. Neither of us are perfect, but tonight made me realize even more that I want him by my side now and forever.

I love you anyway

Yesterday was a particularly rough day. I've had a new job for just over a month, and yeah, it's a good job, but I'm working evenings, and I hate evenings. Bleh. It makes it really hard for me to feel productive for the rest of the day. But, also, I'd been feeling kinda down,  and I started having major anxiety because I was feeling down. Back story, I was actually hospitalized back in August because I was so depressed that I'd become suicidal... so, that's why I was freaking out about feeling down. I've been on medication for months, but I was thinking "What if I can't handle my emotions even while I'm on Prozac? What if I have to be hospitalized again? It took me forever to figure out why I was feeling what I was feeling, but after work, I went over to Zach's apartment, and we talked for a while before we were going to go to the store. I started talking about how I didn't know how I was feeling and I was confused, and eventually I figured it out, because I asked him "Are you sure you want to marry me when I'm such a basket case?" And his response was "I'd marry you 5 times over, because I love you for you. All of you." And for some reason, that did it. I started crying, and he sat there and just held me for a while as I expressed my fears and insecurities about my depression, how badly I didn't want to go back to the hospital, and how afraid I was of post-pardom depression after we have children. He listened and held me, and reassured me that he'd be there to walk with me through thick and thin, for worse or for better. I can't even get over how amazing he is. I feel so safe around him, and almost unworthy of his undying love. One thing's for certain, I'll always do everything I can to live up to his love for me, and show him the same. I'm just constantly in awe of what an amazing man he is. I'm so proud to say that he's going to be the father of my children.

Let there be bells!

So, I definitely don't post on here enough, and I REALLY need to. Because who would have freaking thought?? Zach and I are getting married!!! It only took us about 2 weeks of dating to figure out we wanted to marry each other, so we're technically engaged already, but we haven't gotten my ring back from the jewelers yet. So, we'll be "officially" engaged after he gets it back and legitimately proposes. But, we've already set our wedding date - February 25th - and holy cow, the days cannot pass fast enough. Seriously, November needs to just hurry and get out of here. I'm excited for Thanksgiving though, we'll be spending it with both of our families.
But, to turn the conversation to more of a serious note, today we talked about something really important. I asked him what his experience with pornography has been, and our normal joking, playful banter and conversations took an extremely serious turn. Before he even started speaking, his eyes welled with tears. It broke my heart to hear of his struggle, and I sat close to him and held him as he told his story and cried. It broke my heart not because it was a dealbreaker and I'm going to call off our marriage - but because he is so GOOD, and has such a good heart, it makes me so sad that he's had to deal with that, because it's extremely real, and if you say otherwise, you're literally fooling yourself. In fact, let me tell you something about him. I actually met him several months ago, and back then, I knew almost nothing about him, but I could see he was such a genuinely good person, it almost shocked me that he kept paying attention to me. Remember Ricky? How he was a major "goody-two-shoes" and eventually left me, probably because he couldn't handle my imperfections? That's kinda what Zach seemed like, but not prideful about it, but he seemed so good, and innocent, I had no idea what he saw in me, because "good guys" never stuck around long with me. I'd tried, I'd really tried with a few of them, but it just never worked. So, I figured if anything were to ever happen with me and Zach, it would be exactly the same. Holy cow, was I wrong. We fit together so perfectly, we haven't had the same experiences, but we share the same values, in a lot of ways, like so many it's crazy. I feel so comfortable around him, more comfortable than I've ever felt around anyone in my life. I feel like I could tell him anything and everything, I don't feel the need to hide anything. And I feel that he feels the same way. He was driving me home tonight, after we'd spent pretty much the entire day together because he had a cold, and I had cramps, so we literally spent the entire day on the couch. We watched a couple movies, and then we just talked for hours and hours, and kissed a fair amount. We talked a lot about a lot of weird stuff today though haha. For instance, we began the necessary conversation for newly-weds of sex. Oh boy. But, we both feel that the more comfortable we are discussing somewhat "taboo" subjects, the better. But anyway, probably another really important thing to mention is that Zach has totally turned me into a sappy, hopeless romantic. I'm not a huge advocate of things like "You're the love of my life" or "I don't know what I would do without you" but I said both of those to Zach tonight, and I 100% meant it. Not just like a little bit, but down to every fiber of my being. My entire soul is filled with love for him, I can't even contain it. This may sound purely sexual, but I'm so excited to have sex with him, but like I said, it sounds extremely sexual, but it goes way beyond that. Like, worlds beyond that. Sex is such an intimate thing that our society has normalized, has made cheap. But the emotional bond that is created between a man and a woman during sex, the ultimate expression of love, trust, sacrifice, and openness, is unable to be counterfeit by any other fleeting emotion. Especially when such a couple has devoted their relationship to keeping each other pure and undefiled until their matrimony. He truly is my better half. I'm indescribeably grateful, excited, and humbled at the opportunity to become his wife.