This new laptop is going to do wonders for my journal. I didn't really think about it but my writing really dropped off after I switched to just using my PC at home and at work. A laptop feels more personal. I don't know why.

🙂

Man, nigahiga made the most hilarious video I had seen in a while: Bromance!
It's made me laugh for days.

This weekend was super busy, like every weekend tends to be these days.  Friday I thought I was going to get an evening to spend at home relaxing since Mike's party got canceled but nobody told poor Uzo so he wound up ringing my doorbell at 9pm. Jeremy and I were just goofing off so we decided to head out to a local chinese that we like and then to Applebees for some drinks.  I think I'll be going to Applebees after 10pm from here on out because their drinks and apps are half off! I ordered the potato appetizer and had two long islands for $8.50! Holy crap! That was awesome. Uzo had a bit too much so he came back home with us and spent some time on my floor cuddling my cats. Uzo should definitely get a cat. I love mine and they'd be perfect for a condo the size of his.

Saturday I had a little time in the morning to sleep in and try and get some cleaning done. Jeremy drove me over to my cousin's house for a party and I spent the night at my parents house after.  Sunday they took me to a bridal expo at the Renaissance Waverly and I saw a few more vendors. There was a beautiful dance floor that was all white and lit from below with small white leds, making it look like stars twinkling. I bet that's expensive. 

Everything is expensive. I mean, we did book the largest, most beautiful hotel in Atlanta. It's atrium is only outdone by the  Burj Al-Arab in Dubai.  I shouldn't pretend it's a surprise that everything is this expensive. It's alright. This is life. I only have one day to experience this myself. The next time I will be even as remotely involved is the marriage of my future children.

This will be a stunning event. It's the final seal on a story that has been written and has unfolded over 13 years. It is the pinnacle of our work together in our relationship, the work of our families to overcome cultural rifts, and the groundwork for what I hope to be an extraordinarily grateful life with an amazing partner in crime.

I'm blessed. 

I have my moments when planning this event gets to feel a bit overwhelming but the reality is that whatever I do, I want to strive to do it well. Despite my doubts, this will be the event of the year and a showcase of God's goodness in our lives. Without his hand in our family history for centuries, my family would not have survived all the hardship and I would not be here on this land, walking this soil, reaping these blessings. 

🙂

I can't really decide whether I hate wedding planning or hate planning this specific event. 

I have had another episode today where the words that were coming out of my mother’s mouth seemed so surreal I had to spend some time thinking about it before I allowed it to offend me greatly.

How does someone so nonchalantly tell you that your future husband is the type to “move on” from you if you don’t keep him “grounded in church”?

She could have just said, “Hey, only a power like God could keep someone from leaving you”.

Let me back up.

I had been spending a tough Thursday at work getting my ducks in a row after everything this week had blown up in every way imaginable. I was looking forward to going home. I was tired of last minute requirements, shotgun coding and late night fixes. I just wanted to go home.

My mom called while I was in a 3pm meeting. She said she was nearby and wanted to see me. I left work early, at 4:30 so that I could go meet her at Hobby Lobby and have dinner with her at the nearby Mexican eatery.

The discussion during the meal was okay. Eating alone with my mother is usually a recipe for making me upset. The last time I refused to get upset, she got really upset. It was not good. It’s almost never good. I don’t know why I don’t just say I’m busy or lie about some evening activity so that I only see her in the company of others. She controls her words then. I can be mad at her but I’m partially angry at myself for setting up a situation where she and I are alone.

After eating, in the parking lot, we were just talking about cars and how I was ready for a new one. I mentioned that Jeremy had said he would let me drive his car once we’re married to work sometimes, something I thought was good and made me happy.

She got a twisted little smile on her face. I can almost see something darker wash over her face .. from behind her skin. I know that sounds creepy… but I can’t describe it otherwise.

“He’s pretty giving isn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“You know, you better keep him grounded in church. Those kinds of people who embrace things like that eventually move on”
“What.”
“I’m 50 years old. I’m not stupid okay? Just listen to me”.

At this point I don’t know how to respond so I just change the conversation like she hadn’t just said something really mean, baseless and cruel.

Then she asks me, like she hadn’t just said I couldn’t keep a man unless God himself intervened, why I wasn’t psyching myself up for my own wedding. The scary part is that I felt like she was honestly asking that question. I’m pretty much done with this conversation so I mumble something about having to go.

I get in my car. I am stunned. I’m trying to comprehend that my -mother- just said that to me. The sad part is that this is not the first time. My mother is grossly racist towards white people. She blames them for being racist and then is just as racist herself. She isn’t any better than any other racist.

I make it about two lights before I have to call Jeremy. I manage about 5 minutes of conversation before I have to spill my emotions.

And then I start to cry.
Like a little bitch, I start to cry.

I don’t know how to subvert these underhanded attacks veiled thinly behind motherly concern. I don’t know.
Jeremy listens, like he normally does. And then he changes the subject back to his job search after I finish blubbering through my emotions.

I feel broken some days.
Like my good life actually belongs to someone else and I’m pretending to be happy in someone else’s shoes.

Then I have to remind myself that my self worth is never in question. Nobody defines that. It’s divinely given. It’s a human right. This is a life I have lived. It is -my- life.. as long as I am on this Earth, it is my life.

But I still have the bad aftertaste of feeling emotionally abused.
I just think about how I never hold grudges so I won’t even be thinking about this conversation a week from now. Thank God I had the sense to keep this relationship as far away from everyone, especially my mother, for so long. Her words and own doubts would have poisoned me, this relationship, and I wouldn’t be here today the way I am.

There’s a reason why I never show my real emotions to my mother. They’re just not safe there, in an open space between me and her. They have -never- been safe, from the time in 4th grade that she found my journal and blasted me for having feelings that she didn’t want me to have, to today.

Just another thing to live with.
It just kills me sometimes knowing that she’s the type of person to say cruel mean things that only stir doubt and hurt relationships and then later pat herself on the back for telling people “how it is” and contributing to their success if they succeed, or donning a “told you so” attitude if they don’t. Either way she wins.

It makes me want to hurl.

You know what defines "normal" for me? 
It's switching between hard gangsta rap and fruity korean pop music at work all day.
It's wishing I knew how to lose weight faster and then being angry I'm not faster at running. 
It's Jeremy outlining my improvement by using statistics and telling me to quit comparing myself to everyone and their mom as a measure of success.
It's trying harder anyway.
It's eating a quarter pound of bacon and not feeling a shred of guilt.
And watching Star Trek with my head on a warm, tshirt wrapped chest. 
It's missing my friends that are transient in my life, because of theirs.
It's embracing the hourglass.
It's being a social moth. As in I seem to love dark places with dim lights and going out only at night.

It's playing the entire album Under the Iron Sea by Kean and finding myself awash in an intense nostalgia I can't shake off.
It's living every moment of singlehood with more purpose knowing it's about to end. It's feeling each day as a single grain in the ridges of my fingers. 

It's mentally smashing the hourglass against a glass wall. 
It's staring at my face in the vibrating facade of disguised plastic.

It's life. One hour, one minute, one second and one solid piercing moment at a time.

Damn I like to ramble.

I’ve been training like woah for my upcoming races. I think having to intensely focus on something other than wedding plans is really helping me try and stay levelheaded about this whole thing.

Cursing at my shins mid hill sprint helped me get a lot of the stress out.

They mowed the big hill up near the football fields and when I was exhausted I rambled up the side and sat there, staring at the sun behind some big, misty clouds. It was tranquil there, with all the kids sports gone for the day and the lone Korean runner looking small, feet below.

I’ll be back there tomorrow. And the day after. And Saturday morning, with Jeremy.

I have a wonderful newfound appreciation for exercise and eating better. I wish at times my parents hadn’t left healthy activity and eating out from their parenting agenda entirely. I remember my mother trying to tell me how to eat when I was younger but I rarely saw the advice put into practice. This is one thing I will be doing different with my children.

My parents are not going to be happy if I play Lil Wayne at my wedding.

What the heck is the music going to be like? I am so not into rock music, oldies, or the “typical” wedding songs. Watch it wind up being a bunch of 90’s stuff because it’s the only thing we can agree on.

How about Kevin Rudolf’s “I Made It (Cash Money Heroes)?

I look up to the sky
And now the world is mine
I’ve known it all my life
I made it I made it

I used to dream about
The life I’m living now
I know that there’s no doubt
I made it I made it

The rest of the song would make no sense at a wedding but I love those two quatrains.

I am so ghetto.
I did grow up in the ATL, though. 😛