Registering for School...

With all the excitement about wedding stuff going on and consuming what feels like my whole life at the moment, it’s nice to take a minute and do something totally unrelated to the wedding.

Yesterday I registered J at her new school. Yes, she’s a big-time SECOND grader now...it’s official, I saw the report card where it shows her being promoted. Hang on, let me wipe the tear from my eye...

Yes, I’m being dramatic, but this is my BABY we’re talking about, people! She’s not supposed to be in the second grade yet...seriously. She’s going to be SO mad that I went to do this without her, but it was just easier. And it’s not like they told me who her teacher will be or which classroom is going to be hers, she’s just officially registered to go to that school. The lady at the desk that helped me out with everything told me that there was a meet-the-teacher night scheduled for August 20th, and the first day of school is the 24th.

So, I guess it’s time to buy school supplies and wait for the big day. Maybe I’ll even take some pictures this year...

J is REALLY excited about her new school, even if all of her parents are not. We’re still on a wait list to be transferred possibly to another school that would have been closer for my ex to take her to school and continue our shared custody arrangement. But as the days draw nearer, I wonder what will really happen in August when school starts. Or in September when he re-marries. I hope for her sake that nothing changes. That we’re all able to keep the arrangement that we’ve had since we separated several years back. But my gut says that’s just wishful thinking...so I’ll wait patiently and cross my fingers that it all goes well. Or that she’ll make the adjustments that need to be made ok.

It’s just hard when you’re planning a wedding to remember that there ARE other things going on in the world...not that we watch the listen or keep up with foreign events so much, but there are things that are happening in our lives that do NOT revolve around our wedding.

What other things are going on in your life that you keep up with too, in addition to planning your wedding? Do you find it hard to balance, or does it all just work out for you?

Why I blog…

Someone asked me the other day why I choose to write about my experience as a bride. More importantly, why I feel the need to write about it all as a bride doing it all again. A first-time bride is understandable, since there is all this excitement and anticipation of the unknown coming at you. But for someone who’s already been there and done that…what’s the attraction? And why would people care?

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Well, it’s not a simple answer. There are several reasons why I blog. First and most importantly, I blog because I love it. I’ve always been somewhat creative and love having the outlet that blogging allows. It’s not necessarily that I think that what I have to say is so important, I’m confident and have LOADS of good self-esteem, but even I realize that my audience is small! But it doesn’t really matter to me if one person reads my blog or if 500 people read my blog. I don’t write for you guys, I write for me.

This keeps me sane. Yes, it’s a way for me to keep friends and family informed with what all is going on with the wedding planning process. This way I don’t have to make three phone calls to three Maids, plus one to Mama CC and one to FMIL…they can read the blog at their own pace and stay caught up with what’s in the works. I just love it when I talk to one of them and they bring up something that I wrote about…makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Yes, sometimes it gets confusing because I wait to talk about things until it’s posted on my blog, but that’s just me making things harder on myself!

Another reason that I do this is because I have really tried to connect with people in my same situation. Planning a second (or third) wedding is WAY different than planning your first wedding, and although there’s nothing wrong with first-time brides, there is often a different perspective that women doing this for a second time around have. And I look for that. I actively search for it. And I can tell you, it’s sort of hard to find. There’s just not that many of us out there being open and upfront about this whole process. It seems to be more “acceptable” to have a small, intimate second wedding, not to do the whole extravagant affair when it isn’t your first wedding. So if my posts can bring someone else some measure of comfort or a feeling of “I’m not alone in this!” to them, then I have accomplished what I set out to do.

And to be perfectly honest, it’s just not the same being a bride for the second time around. There are different issues that I face…things that I deal with that new brides don’t necessarily understand. Things like how your decisions affect people other than just you and your groom. Understanding that at times, there are just things that you cannot have in your wedding because it’s something that brings up painful memories. And being ok with your future spouse telling you that you can’t do this or that for that reason and not being all jealous-crazy-woman about it. Let’s face it, most “encore brides” are more mature, if not in age, then in experience. There are things that we’ve gone through and experienced that new brides haven’t.

We know what it’s like to have the one person that you thought that you could always count on let you down…and yes, it’s different than when a parent or friend lets you down. We know what it’s like to love someone with all your heart, but to understand in your head that it’s best to let them go. And we know when to admit that we made a mistake. With full knowledge of making the mistake at the time that we did it. And we still did it. So, we also know what it’s like to correct something like that, knowing that the other person doesn’t understand and probably never will. Living with that is sometimes hard.

So planning a wedding isn’t all happiness, hearts, flowers and butterflies all the time. It just isn’t. It can be, and there may be weeks in between each maudlin session that an “encore bride” might experience. For me, those moments are few and far between. I think that what makes the most difference is Mr. CC himself and how I am with him. I’m me, plain and simple. And he loves me. Doesn’t ask or expect me to be something/someone that I’m not. And that means the world to me.

Did you start a blog during an important event during your life? Was it helpful to you? Did you continue it even after the event was over? This is something that I’m starting to think about as my wedding day gets closer and closer…

How do you correct what you don’t know how to fix?

This is a question that I’ve been asking myself lately. You see, there are times when couples argue. There are times when couples fight. There are always times when two people who are their own individuals don’t get along. This is to be expected, and should be not great shock when it happens.

What is shocking is when it continues to happen over and over….only not with the same two people. What if it kept happening with whoever you were with? What if eventually each partner that you’ve spent a decent amount of time in a relationship with complains about the same thing?

Sure, when you first break-up you can blame it on the other person. You might even be able to rationalize those actions when the second partner that makes the same argument. But after the third one? Who’s kidding herself now? I guess that would be me, party of one.

I think what is so hard for me to wrap my head around is the fact that I spent about a year in therapy after the end of my last marriage. There were many reasons for this. My ex had done a good number on me (verbally/mentally/emotionally) and there were some definite scars and wounds that needed healing. And I needed the help of a professional to get those healed. Another reason that I went the route of therapy was due to my own wish that I not repeat my past mistakes. A mistake is often a learning experience…you make the mistake, you live with the consequences, all the while hoping that you’ve learned your lesson so that the next time that you get the same opportunity you make better choices and don’t get back to the same place where you were.

Do you know what I mean?

So how is it that after nearly two years of blissful happiness, I’m faced once again with the same argument that others have given me? I did my time, I struggled through the hard therapy. I took the truthful look inside myself, accepted my faults for what they were and vowed to work on them. I did the labor, dealt with the grief, and moved on. I made myself a better person. A more loving person, someone that someone else would want to be with…

And yet now, right at this moment, I feel like I’m right back where I started from…I feel like all the work got washed away and forgotten, as if it was on a chalkboard and the janitor came by one day when I wasn’t looking and cleaned the slate. In some cases this would be a good thing. But in my case, I don’t really feel that way. I feel that the sneaky janitor didn’t wash it all off and give me a clean slate to start with…I feel like he washed off all of my hard work and notes that I took to help me not make those same mistakes again…which leaves me bare and empty-handed.

Damn that janitor!!! What did I do to him to make this happen?

Is it all just stress? Is it all just in my head? Am I making myself crazy with all of this wedding business? Is it work-related and once things calm down with my projects at work and I get on firm footing again with my job some of this will magically disappear? Am I just taking on too much at a time? I mean, in one month, I wrapped a big project at work, I moved out of my apartment and in with my fiancé, I started focusing on a new project at work, and started planning a wedding with almost no help or support from those that I care about the most? Is it just emotional trauma? Am I letting the problems that others might have with my situation get the best of me and kill my mood and confidence in myself and my sense of purpose?

Where did I take the wrong turn? Does anyone else ever lose their footing every once in a while? Does this mean that I have to start all over (to some degree) or did I just lose the path today? Maybe tomorrow will be a better day…

Yes, I'll marry you, but not right now...

It all started almost a year and a half ago. My fiancé and I were on the phone one day, after we’d been dating about six months. I was driving to my daughter’s day care to pick her up from school and he was driving home. It was “date night” for my daughter and I - so my fiancé and I were enjoying a quick phone call before I spent the evening with her. During the course of the conversation, marriage came up. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but a part of me knew that it was a semi-serious question.

I didn’t say yes. But I also didn’t say no. I said not now. We had only been dating for about six months. But there was a part of me that wanted to say yes. I knew, deep down in the bottom of my soul that this man was the one for me. That he was the man of my dreams – the one that I had spent the last thirty years looking to find. And I wanted to say yes. And I know that I would have said yes if it had just been me. I would have married him in a heartbeat.

But the reality of my world is that it wasn’t just me. I had someone else who depended on me to take care of her – to make the best choices since now all of my choices also affected her. And my reality was that I had a five year-old daughter who had spent the last year coming to terms with my divorce from her father, and she was still having struggles with seeing me date. If it had just been me, we would have gotten engaged that day. And she was doing very well with me dating my fiancé, but there were moments that you could tell that she just wasn’t sure about the whole thing.

So I said not now. But at that moment, I knew that I loved him. Not just enough to date and be with for a while, but truly, deeply loved him. I knew that I had found someone who would stay by my side each and every day, giving into the relationship just as much (if not more) than I did every day. Someone that I cared for more and more deeply as every day passed.

From that moment on, we started planning the logistics of WHEN all of this would happen. Maybe we couldn’t talk about the marriage aspect of things yet, but we could talk about our life together and how we would take care of this or that. We started to plan what each of us wanted to do with the house that he owns, how to improve it and make it better for the four of us to live in. We talked about money and finances and our personal thoughts on debt and credit and how to handle major purchases. In short, we started to merge our lives. Slowly but surely, we made plans for the future and for the day when we knew that my daughter would be as ready as we were to take the next step.

So we talked all around it, but never really talked about the actual event. By that I mean that we talked about the day that we would be married, but not about the actual day that we would get married. We talked about everything except the wedding. Most of you girls out there are wondering how we could skip over the most important part of getting married, but it just wasn’t what was on the forefront of our minds. But all of that changed this past September…stay tuned for those discussions….