SHORT HAIR, DON'T CARE! Tales of an offbeat bride...

Well, hello fellow life-remixers :)  Hope all is well on your side of the globe!  As for me, I've been enjoying the chilly, rainy weather here in Germany.  Makes for the perfect wedding planning weather -- snuggled up under Ryan's Big Bang Theory blanket that I gifted him and then stole for my deployment, sipping on herbal tea, exchanging ideas with my craftiest bff ever.

 

One thing I've found kind of iffy are the countless wedding checklists and unsolicited advice out there.  I'm not saying it hasn't been helpful; my eyes have definitely been opened to how much time, effort, and money (holy moly, A LOT of freakin' money) the average brides put into their special day.  While I'm thankful to have found some practical tips and creative aesthetics, I'm finding myself marking "N/A" (the nice way of saying "eff that!!!!") next to some of the items on the checklists instead of a check mark.

One of my absolute FAVORITE (insert sarcasm) pieces of advice was somewhere around the 6 month mark, it said something like this, "This is the time you should be thinking about what hairstyle you will wear on your big day!  If you have short hair, GROW IT OUT!  You'll be happy you did!"  Hmmm...  

Or I can get these! 

Not that I don't think about it...  I often go through phases where I think I'll be able to do more things with long hair or would make me more, dare I say, feminine.  I'd say every other year I grow it out, only to end up chopping it again into a variety of kick ass hair cuts (yes, that was self-proclaimed kick assness).  In my defense, inquiring women contribute to my chopping addiction lol, flattering me with questions like, where I get my hair cut, how did I explain it to the stylist, what products I use, etc.  More often than not they follow with, "I've always wanted to do it, but I'm scared!"  Encouraging complete strangers to face their fear (even if it IS just hair) is just as empowering as consistently going under the shears.

Sooo many styles to try!  I've been experimenting more with my natural curls lately.  I usually straighten it, which isn't good for your hair, but I'm really digging the natural look.

This was last year, I think.  Picture this, but with the A-symm haircut I have right now. 

  
In my 32 years on Earth, I've had short hair more than I've had long hair, so I see no reason to be a different person on my wedding day.  And really, for you other brides out there, it's less about hair and more about just doing what will make you and your fiance happy.  Some very special friends have taught me that these past few weeks (thank you guys)!  Your wedding will be the most beautiful day of your life whether there's 300 guests or 30, if you have a ginormous cake or a cup cake tower, the best DJ or an Ipod on shuffle lol, oh and of course long hair or short hair.  Be the person your fiance asked to marry.  Be yourself!  

Not how my fiance proposed, but I would have swooned just as much if he did haha!

How I was supposed to propose... but didnt!

A lot of people ask me how Ryan proposed.  It's a story I will never grow tired of telling, but what many don't know is that if I had gone through my original plan, Ryan would be the one telling the story about the day that I, yes I, proposed to him.

I can name a million times throughout our relationship when I knew he was the one, but I was never ready, always feeling like there were so many other things I had yet to accomplish.  While Ryan had been successful in his career on top of recently graduating with his Master's degree, I always felt like I needed to catch up.  Not that he ever made me feel that way, but I put a lot of pressure on myself to achieve that nagging "list" of things while proving that I could be an independent single mom. While I thought I was being a good girlfriend by not asking for things or relying too much on him, I was also bottling up a lot of affection, vulnerability, and... love.  I think it's called "pride".

During the first year it seemed he was always apologizing about something.  Sorry you have been hurt in the past.  Sorry you're frustrated with school.  Sorry you don't get enough sleep.  Sorry you and Kahlil are alone in your apartment while there is a huge thunderstorm.  

Year 1

Looking back I realize that every apology wasn't "because" he ever did anything wrong but "just because" he sincerely wanted to make things easier for me and make me smile.  His gratuitous apologies were never without a kind gesture, whether big or small.  Flowers.  A massage.  A home cooked meal. Doing my dishes (sometimes a week's worth).  Watching Kahlil while I studied.  Fixing my car.  And even driving an hour in the middle of the night to sleep next to me for 3 hours before driving another hour to work.

Year 2

After I had completed my Psych Tech course and got a descent job, we moved in together.  Pretty big step, but in the back of my mind I was still thinking of that dreaded list, as if there was a way to somehow match his contributions to our relationship.  Then out of nowhere I got orders to deploy, which needless to say shook up our world.  I won't go into detail about how stressful deployment is, but as always, Ryan stepped up to the plate.  

Year 3

While all my friends and family would ask when we were ever going to get hitched, I don't know why it took deploying to truly know that I was ready.  Maybe because even thousands of miles apart, Ryan is able to ease my worries by basically taking on the single dad role, always treating Kahlil like his own.  Maybe because I finally see that I have accomplished a lot and that Ryan recognizes it and appreciates me.  Or maybe simply because it literally hurts to be apart.

Year 4

So... A month into my deployment I decided I'd propose when he came to visit me.  Instead of a ring, I bought him a compass to symbolize the places we have been, and the direction we are headed.  How to do it?  A flashmob in Germany?  A scavenger hunt in France?  All my friends were prepared to help me.  I finally decided to take him on a picnic at Heidelburg Palace, but instead I had an anxiety attack and picked a fight instead (how romantic)!  

 For the next week or so, the Tiffany's box sat in my purse, fraying the ends of the bow.  I finally gave it to him in Prague on his birthday... but still couldn't get the words out.  What the heck?!  I suck at proposing!!  Proposing is the hardest thing I've never done!!  It seriously kept me from having fun, I was a nervous wreck!!  I finally decided to just relax and enjoy the next few precious days together.  If it happened, cool.  If not, I'd ask when I returned from my deployment.  I could practically hear the locals making clucking chicken noises at me.

We're blessed to have fam & friends who root for us.  My dear friends, Maria & Jerel Francisco, helped get this to me in Germany when I thought Tiffany&Co didn't ship overseas.  Turns out I was on the wrong website, doh!! HAHA!!  Nevertheless, while marriage was once something I feared, I now look forward to it because of great examples like them. 

And then it happened.  On Ryan's second to the last night, he popped the question!  After telling me he had been wanting to marry me for the longest time, waiting for me to be ready, I burst into tears... and not even cute tears... sobbing, red-nosed, unable to even answer, tears all over his shirt.  Yup.  That's me.  Miss romantic.  Haha!!

August 2, 2013

So yea, that's the end of that story, but it's only the beginning of many chapters to come.  I'm sure I'll have a lot more graceless milestones to talk about, but one thing I know for sure is that God put Ryan in my life to show me that someone can love me even when I fall short.  It's not about being perfect.  It's about being perfect for each other.  In turn, I've learned how to give more of myself and not to hold back.  I know it sounds crazy, but I can't wait to get home to make him my priority.  Because I know everything else will fall into place as long as we have our love.   

To Everything (Turn, turn, turn)

This song has been in my head all morning.  

My dad used to sing it to us as kids.  Of course back then I didn't know the meaning of it's lyrics, and I'm sure the screaming girls didn't either.  Peter Seger, a folk singer, based it off Ecclesiastes 3 from the bible and was later remade by many artists including The Byrds, a 60s rock band.  I found myself reciting one of it's lines to a dear friend today, "There is a season for everything".

Just from the catchy chorus I always knew it meant that there is a time for everything, but after reading and rereading the entire verse, it made me realize how unknowing the human heart is.

Eccl. 3:11 reads, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

This got me stuck at first until I read that the Hebrew translation of eternity means to "hide or conceal".  I think hidden things of an everlasting nature have been put in all of our hearts so that we can't always understand why things happen the way they do, when they do, but at the right time we will.

With everything happening in the world, this isn't easy to understand.  I'm troubled, daily, but on a smaller scale, I am comforted.  

As Pete Seeger said in an interview with Alec Wilkinson, writer of The Protest Singer, "It's worth considering.  The world is filled with opposites intertangled.  Good and bad.  Nobody knows.  Only God knows.  The agricultural revolution took thousands of years, the industrial revolution took hundreds of years, and now the information revolution only took decades.  If we use the brains God gave us, who knows what miracles can happen in the next few years.