It was a humid kind of sunny afternoon where you couldn’t help but sweat unless you were in the pool. I was not, since I was waiting for fiancé’s mum to pick me up any minute. We were out back on my dad’s patio while the younger kids played in the pool. I congratulated his friends, who had been married the weekend before. They told me how the ceremony went, showed off their rings, and thought it appropriate to share this advice with me:

“Don’t worry, it’s so much easier and way more fun the second time around.” They didn’t chuckle, which would indicate they were being sarcastic or joking, but looked at me with a sympathetic smile. As if I were embarking on a stressful wedding journey where I ultimately discover that he’s not the man for me, we’ll call it quits and one day do it all over again with different people. I excused myself for a refill of iced tea.

I was sitting on my front porch, leaning against the porch frame, eating strawberries and sipping my hibiscus tea. I was lazily waiting for the rain to come and brought an Oprah magazine out to keep me company. The first article I read described how the problem with most married couples is that they are so desperately clinging to the comfort of what’s familiar, they miss out on the beauty of change and discovery/ The key, it read, was to embrace that love is not forever, and that once we are open to change, we unchain ourselves from miserable lifetimes.

I now take this literary opportunity to wonder loud, “What the eff?” Who hardwired these people to be so pessimistic and why are they trying to counsel a young bride with impeding doom?

Will this be one of those things that I look back at when I’m 45 and scoff at how naïve and wide-eyed I was, believing in true love found at age 15 and meant to last forever? Will that be because I have grown more wise with age, or more cynical? And is that destined to happen at all or can I still please believe that, even as a twentysomething, love is something I’ve found and committed to and that is true and blind to the participant’s age?

This is isn’t a cold feet post, because I am excited to live in a chaotic household run by screaming kids with syrup in their hair, I know I’ll get a rushed kiss on the cheek while we both run in different directions—him to work, me to soccer practice. I am excited to know that at one point, I will go through something that I will later call the most difficult part of my life and that he will be there going through it with me. I am actually excited to see what the universe will try and throw at us, and to conquer each obstacle with unity. I foresee love and strength unwavering during the tough times, and celebration of the good.

I’m just wondering aloud, who do you think you are to tell me I’m foolish, naïve or setting myself up for failure?

The last 3 or 4 weeks have been, in no sensical order, DJ meetings, cake tasting, Sens game watching, moving stuff to my place form my parents, packing, running, phone calls from fiancé, graduating, swimming, buying a truck like a grownup, negotiating a rent contract with people 5,000 km away, remembering to paint my toenails when they start chipping (for not to is a sin), planning my lasts (last day, last party, last dinner, last beach day…), planning futures (future visits, future trips, future wedding…) and of course catching up on Dr Phil reruns. I know its lame to say I blew off writing for Dr Phil reruns, but it felt so indulgent to turn my brain off and let a Texan and his insane guests entertain me.

I am counting down the days until I get to see my man again after being at cop-training school ½ way across the country for the last 6 months. We’re down to 18 days now, which feels so unreal considering the countdown started in the hundreds. I’m as excited to see him as I used to be when I counted down the days to vacations. Knowing that in xx amount of days, my cares will slip away, I’ll be taken somewhere new and exiting and be surrounded with all things good that I have convinced myself I am thus far missing. It won’t be a vacation this time but I am excited to see my man again and in a way we are escaping to a new place, albeit for keeps this time. The catch is, to get there and finally see him again, I have to leave my family and the only life I’ve known behind me and fly far, far away. But with him, so that’s awesome. But without my friends and family, so that’s tough. See what a catch-22 je suis dedans?

So that’s what my head’s been dancing around this last little while. It’s been tough to grab it out of the clouds and keep it down long enough to formulate written thoughts.