Personal Growth Goals: February 2015

Personal Growth Goals: February

As an adult, I think I’ve (mostly) got my shit together. I’m reasonable when it comes to my finances (go away ULTA/EXPRESS/KOHLS/AMAZON) and I’m semi-successfully holding down a job I really enjoy. By no means am I perfect (in fact, I suck at a lot of things-- I’m okay with this most days), but I think I’m doing pretty well for myself with all things considered.

This aside, there are things about myself that I constantly vow to change (and then I don’t change at all.). Ask any of my coworkers, or friends in recent years, and they’ll tell you about the total mess that is my car. I’ve been historically horrid at keeping a clean vehicle, and the current state of affairs that my somewhat new car is in supports this.

I tell myself constantly that I’m going to clean it up. I’m going to take care of my pretty little red car. I’m gonna do it. I get myself pumped up and then the moment I sit down in the vehicle, I immediately double back on the promises I made myself.

‘It’s too cold.’

‘I’ll do it tomorrow.’

‘I don’t have time today.’

I used to see a therapist when I was younger. I had been through a lot during my 13th year of life and spent a good week in a center for troubled youths. I used to lie awake at night and wonder what everyone around me what do if I were suddenly gone. I would fantasize about disappearing out of my life. I would dream of dying.

Maybe this is normal 13 year old stuff. Maybe not.

These thoughts led me to one day considering and damn near making an attempt on my own life. I thought that I was friendless and alone. I thought that no one would understand the deep waters that I was drowning in. Somedays, I still feel those waters creeping over my head.

I spent 6 days in a home, surrounded by peers of mine who had arguably lived through much worse than I would ever dream of, and when I was allowed to come home, I brought home a new perspective and a pack of little green pills that were supposed to balance me out.

Day three of my stay in said home, I had learned to cut the pills in half because I wouldn’t be able to eat otherwise. I realized that the medicine I was given had a powerful impact on my body and that it wasn’t something to be taken lightly.

I began seeing a therapist, recommended by the therapists that had with me during the worst of it, and she was a wry woman in what I assume was her mid-forties. What I remember most is that she had bright red curly hair and a white board behind her desk. She would often challenge me to think differently, and one time, after learning of my love of Harry Potter, she had pulled out a wand and asked me, “If I could magic away one aspect of your life, what would it be?”

I thought for a moment and replied with one of those instinctual answers that scare you as the words come out of your mouth, but also feel like one of the most truthful things you could say.

“I wish I could magic away my mom’s alcoholism. I don’t want to take anything else away about my life, because it would change who I am, but I would like to get rid of that.”

She paused for a moment, placed the wand back in the box, and took a breath.

“That’s probably one of the best answers I’ve heard yet.”

Now, I don’t want to convey the wrong image here, she and I weren’t always on these great terms where we would dissect the most intimate and frightening parts of my life with the wisdom of much-lived crones. Sometimes, I wanted to pull my headphones out of my backpack and drown her out because I was 13 and I knew everything.

She asked me one day, “How’s school? How do you feel with having changed so much in such a short period of time?”

I responded in a noncommittal way, and she asked about my homework.

My eyes darted to the poster (that I now know was one of M. C. Escher’s works), and I tried to avoid answering. I could see that my response had frustrated her in a bit. When she asked me why I hadn’t done as I’d promised and made a better effort to do my homework, I told her that I simply didn’t have enough time.

I had been at my dad’s, and I had wanted to spend that time with him.

“So, you think your dad would have minded you doing your homework?” She asked pointedly, and I was just beginning to realize the hole I had dug myself into. I stared at the Escher poster again.

“You know what.” She looked at me across her desk, “I was going to try and put a different quote on the board, but I think you’ve just let me know that that’s not the right thing to do. I’ll need to change it back.”

She had said these words calmly, but I felt as if she were shouting at me. I felt my cheeks burn as she erased a quote that I know I would never see again and wrote “NO EXCUSES” in big red letters.

No excuses.

I still think about this moment when I’ve pushed off another Blog Post Tuesday-- a holiday that I put in my calendar so that I would write a blog post on a weekly basis.

Returning to my car and, I’ve decided to create a monthly Personal Growth Goal. This/these goals won’t be super large goals that can be seen as a life changing endeavor, but are small goals to round me out as a person. 

For February, I intend to say “NO EXCUSES” and start taking care of the little things in my life (i.e. the previously mentioned car and my inbox for that matter). I also intend to learn the map of the United States because it is a total shame that I can’t locate each state and capital. I’ve lived here my entire life. I need to get my shit together.

Overnight Oats: Also Known As, I Feel Like I've Been Lied To

Most mornings begin with my husband giving me an eye roll. The sentence, “that’s a lot of calories,” has come out of my mouth more often than I’d like to admit in the most recent weeks. It’s January, a time to start the new year with good habits and all of that bullshit, and I am making a go of it. I go to the gym (more often than I used to) and try to eat as few breads possible. I did a clean eating challenge, a plank challenge, and a SUPER SEXY! Fitness challenge.

I’ve fallen into the trap of being an adult. And part of me likes it.

Now, before we get into the next bit, I would like to say that I love greek yogurt. When I say love, I mean that it’s replaced my other love (long live sour cream!) because it has fewer calories and I can buy it for waaay cheaper (Seriously! You can get individuals of Greek yogurt for less than a dollar if you play your cards right).

So! When I saw a recipe that turned Greek yogurt into a 200 calorie breakfast that would mix even more fruit into my diet and introduce a healthy grain, I jumped into it. Or rather, I mixed it all into a bowl and let it sit in my fridge overnight.

Let me just also say, I read post after post of blogs that swore up and down that this would revolutionize my breakfast. I would wake up the next morning and find that my boring old breakfast had left my life, and this new and extravagant stranger would make it all better. The thing about extravagant strangers, as I am learning, is that they’re strange.

I didn’t eat my overnight oats as breakfast yesterday (perhaps this was a flaw in my logic, I’m hungrier in the mornings and therefore care less about the taste), I actually ate them as dinner (I’m lazy, what do you expect?). I pulled one serving out of the fridge and sat down to write a chapter. I stirred the oats (read: attempted) and regretted that our fridge was set to such a cold setting.

Perhaps another flaw was pairing the yogurt with orange juice (which I adore). Oats can only go so far as flavor is considered, and orange juice bursts with citrus-y deliciousness. If this moment were on one of those cooking shows where the contestants serve their dish to a judge, I would lose a lot of points due to the overpowering nature of the orange juice and the lack of balance in my dish.

I stirred once more and took the plunge.

Let me say, I have grown used to the sourness of Greek yogurt. I’ve gotten used to the way I can dip veggies into the yogurt and enjoy a ranch-less snack.

I was under prepared for how strange the flavor of the yogurt would be with the oats. Now, keep in mind, I mixed milk, brown sugar and other ingredients into this recipe as well, but the overarching confusion on my tongue was the fact that the yogurt was sweet and sour and oat-y at the same time.

I begin to wonder if all of those cool and trendy blogs that suggested this meal had exaggerated just a wee bit about just how good this would taste. I kept eating.

I once heard a story, from an ex-boyfriend’s mom, about how said ex had overcome the strange flavor of ratatouille by eating it quickly. I’ve tried this multiple times and have yet to succeed. I have learned my will is just not as strong as the flavor.

As I got down into the little jar of oats, I would like to say that things got better, but I just can’t. I wonder if my disappointment is primarily in the fact that the oats weren’t as awesome as promised or the fact that I feel as if I was tricked into a “trend treat” by bloggers who either have better taste or like different things than I do.

A friend of mine once encouraged me to, “embrace the basic,” and I’m not gonna go on a long rant about how I feel about the subject of basic, but the idea got me wondering if I’m type-casting myself into a role that I don’t wholly fit into. Trendy food blogger is just not something that I can be. I don’t have the time nor the energy nor the want to constantly be at the gym.

Do I want to blog? Well, yeah. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. Blogging is play writing to me, and the best part is that I get an audience. I can say whatever I want in my blog because I don’t take it that seriously. It’s a way to blow off steam and scribble my teenage thoughts across the internet. I know, I’m reaching to keep the tone of this light and somewhat funny. A wise teacher once pointed out to me that even the most light-hearted nonfiction always had that sense of “trouble”. It keeps the reader interested.

 

Returning to the oats and my mid-twenties discussion, I ended up finishing the serving of oats this morning. Well, there are a few more bites left, but I also added almonds and honey into the mix in the hopes of cancelling out the sour/oat/sweetness of the meal. The jury is still out on whether or not it worked. 

I think I’m going to keep commenting on the foods that I try (mainly because I want you all to be as hungry as I am all the time) and let you know which foods are a little bit fraudulent in their claims of deliciousness. Someone’s gotta set the right expectation for these Low Calorie! and Super Delicious! meals that look great on camera, but are lackluster on the palette.

/rant: An Open Letter to "Nice Guys" and What "Nice Guys Finish Last Might Actually Mean"

This post has been stewing in my mind for a while now. It's come to a tipping point in which I've decided that I would like to jump into the conversation, and I'm probably going to piss a few of you off.

Too.

Fucking.

Bad.

Okay, let's start from the beginning. What originally pushed me to write this post is the PLETHORA of posts/letters/comments that I see on social media on a daily basis about this subject. As a twenty-first century woman, I would like to say that I'm pretty sick of hearing the phrase "nice guys finish last."

Now, keep in mind, this is purely opinion and take it with a grain of salt if you please, but I honestly think that the phrase "nice guys finish last" is more referring to sex more than anything. As in, nice guys will let their girl finish first. Why? Because putting your partner's sexual pleasure above your own is in the essence of caring more about the other person. Putting your partner's sexual experience above your own is how you build a good relationship. Because a relationship isn't about one person's needs. It's about the needs of both people.

Ground breaking isn't it?? Holy shit folks... let's just let that one brew in your mind for a minute.

Okay, now that we've cleared that up.

The next thing I would like to tackle is this sense of entitlement that the twenty-first century male has to the females he perceives himself as "being nice to."

Let's start from the base. BEING NICE TO OTHER HUMAN BEINGS DOES NOT EQUATE A REWARD SYSTEM IN WHICH YOU GET TO DATE AND OR HAVE SEX WITH THE OTHER PERSON. IT MEANS THAT YOU VALUE THEM AS A HUMAN BEING.

Don't even try to argue with me here. I won't hear of it. I don't give a fuck that you've been listening to some girl complain about her boyfriend. Let me break a little news to you darling: if she's complaining to you, she's probably complaining to everyone else too. I've been in relationships with the so-called "douche-bags" that you claim not to represent, and trust me, I complained to every person I possibly could.

Why? You may ask... Because I didn't want to deal with the problem. And you know what, that was MY decision. Not yours. Not my best friend who has to hear all of it. Mine.

Also, let's get another thing straight. Being "nice" to someone so that they'll one day realize that you're "better" than the "douche-bag" that she "chases after in order to challenge and break" is an attitude of complete and total selfishness. I just want to point out that the idea that women "chase after" a guy who they want to "break and then train" is not only inaccurate but also disgustingly sexist.

Perhaps you're unaware of how attraction works, being that your sexist morals and selfish motives for treating other people like a human being makes you damn near completely unattractive, but attraction is built on an underlying sexual tension. If there's no sexual tension and the attraction isn't there, you're probably not the best choice to date. It doesn't matter how nice someone is; if the attraction isn't there, it just isn't.

And also, returning a little bit to my original point, if you don't want to be nice to someone because it's the right thing to do, then perhaps you should take a long fucking look in the mirror.

Seriously. Think for just a minute about how utterly selfish it is to EXPECT someone to want to date you just because you treat them like you should treat them. Oh with, I dunno, respect and compassion.

Maybe you need a reminder of how to be a good person. Because being how you are now isn't getting you many dates... is it? Perhaps you should take this moment to reflect on the reasons why someone might not perceive you as a good choice as a partner and realize that you've got shit to work on. We all do. I'm married, and I still have shit to work on with myself. Marriage doesn't last on that Hallmark roses and cards bullshit and neither does a well-founded relationship.

/end rant.

Impossible is Nothing

Impossible is Nothing

I’ve felt a lot of initiative in the last couple weeks with the ringing in of the New Years. I see coworkers and friends around me who are working hard to lose weight, to shape up, and to learn new skills. I’m joining them personally, and two weeks in, I’m at the point where I’ll either give up completely or I’ll keep going for the rest of the year.

One of the things I’ve been working on is creating a daily writing habit. I’ve been working (slowly) on a novel over the last couple months, and I have a due date to finish this piece. I keep notes on what happens with the characters, and I work semi-diligently on the scenes that come to my mind for their story. It’s a long story that I will only hint at here, but I’m happy to be working on it.

What’s really been sticking out for me lately is my own focus on music to keep me going. I’ve always found music to be a source of inspiration, and I’ve created a bunch of playlists to keep me going. I’ve enlisted Pandora, Songza, Spotify and several other music apps on my smartphone and computer to feed my need for catchy upbeat songs to write to. I thought I would obsess over one album in particular, but I’ve been streaming a bunch of music from all genres.

Something clicked in my head today about one song in particular. I’ve never understood the line “You gotta hate to not have it more than you’d love to obtain it,” until now. It’s from Iggy Azalea’s song “Impossible is Nothing” and I don’t know what brought on this understanding, but I get it now.

Let me start by saying, I love my job. I really do love the rush and the pitch and almost everything that has to do with sales. I love being able to pull all the stops out and give a customer the best service they could possibly get from a sale.

But I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life. I’m already burnt out from giving it my all and I’ve only been at this position for half of a second at the most. I’m good at this job, but deep in the marrow of my bones, I can sense that this is not where I belong. Maybe it was the words of my coworkers, maybe it was looking at college programs this afternoon, but I can say with certainty that this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life.

I’ve been working slowly on a novel for the last six months. I’ve been fantasizing about the finish line for a while with it, but slowly working my way towards--crawling, really. I’ve been thinking about obtaining it and how great that would be. I’ve been pinning hopes on “what ifs” and “could haves” to get me by as I inch through a story I have mostly written in my head.

Up until this point, I didn’t hate to not have it.

Now, I do.

Now, I want to finish this story that’s been playing in my mind for the last six months and I want to do it in a timely fashion. I’ve got a countdown on my phone for my deadline, but I want to finish it before then. I want to finish it before I get into another program. I keep telling myself that I’m not a “gusher” when it comes to writing, but I think it’s because I keep telling myself that I’m not. It’s time to let the vein flow and let the words onto the page.

On Self Sabotage

On Self Sabotage

Amanda Sickels

As a human being,  and generally someone who likes to make excuses, I know a lot about self sabotage. I've put my head down on the pillow at night to replay my previous failings for hours on end. Each time, I tell myself that it wasn't my fault. There was nothing I could do. I blame the other people involved.

I realize that this is a part of my innately selfish nature. Any of my friends will tell you I'm a rather endearing narcissist, but this is one place where my 'me' focus creates a divide between where I am and where I want to be. I tell myself, I'm just waiting for the right conditions to thrive in.

I keep hoping that someone else will water the dry soil that I've grown roots in. I think that it's not my fault; the conditions just weren't right. I tell myself that a day will come when the conditions are perfect, and I will thrive. But that day never comes. Something happens, I make an excuse and skip out on going to the gym yet again. I tell myself that it wasn't my fault that I had a bad day.

I grant that some of the bad that I go through is not my fault. There are outside variables that contribute to the moments when I fall short of who I aim to be. But the difference, for me, between those moments being a failure and a triumph, is my attitude. The difference is whether or not I chose to let life happen or let myself live.

This applies to a lot of what is going on in my personal life. I'm working on a project, and I have a great support team who are cheering me on every step of the way, yet I struggle to push out a couple pages a week. When that team of people asks for a status update, I find that I only have an empty page and shame to report. I believe in this project. I love this story, and I know that once I finish it, I will have told a story the needed to be told. Yet, I stare uninspired at the page night after night and pretend that I am working.

I make the excuse that I am tired. I say that I'm not mentally ready to write. It's not the right time of day. I don't have enough coffee. I'm hungry. I'm stressed.

I make every excuse I can to avoid taking the personal responsibility that I owe myself.

This morning, I made no deals with myself. Instead of going back to bed, I made myself go to the gym. I could have easily spent the 2 hours it took to motivate myself into putting on gym clothes and running on a treadmill in bed. But I decided this morning that if I ever had a hope at keeping the same body size that I have now, I would have to start acting like I want it.

I'm not the thinnest person ever, but I am lucky to be petite. I am lucky that my metabolism has been able to keep up with the bad food I constantly choke it with because I would be facing a lot of health risks if I were to gain weight. My knees are bad now (I'm 22, I can't imagine what they're going to be like in 50 years), and if I ever hope to keep from replacing them in the future, I have to start building good habits now.

I have to start taking responsibility for my actions both great and small. I have to realize that while I may have one bad situation in a day, it's up to me to decide whether or not that situation is how the rest of my day goes.

I have to make a conscious decision that if I ever want to do the long list of things that I want to do, I have to do them.  This seems simple, but it takes a pep talk to make myself open up the word document and get things started. And that has to change. In reference to Hemingway, I need to remember the hunger that comes with the art. I need to feel it in my gut and embrace it, so that I can let that desire propel me into being the person I want to be.

I won't kid myself into thinking I'm gonna turn over a new leaf tonight, but I am signing a contract to myself to do these things:

Take responsibility for what I can control,

Respect my body and take care of it,

Have faith in myself.

That last one is the hardest and the steepest uphill battle, but it is the promise most worthy of keeping. For me.

Foiled Chicken and Potatoes

“Make sure you cut the potatoes thin. They’ll need to cook quickly.” Mom is directing us from out the back door as we cut the potatoes into slivers. Foil glints across the table and the other ingredients are laid out with it. 

There’s a warmth that edges in as she gives us directions every few minutes, the outside coming into our air conditioned world. My brother Brandon is on the bench, Zack is on one of the chairs on the opposite side of the table. Our table has become a paper mache of old Sunday comics and the Region sections of several newspapers. We each have a white handled paring knife in hand and it is a race to see who can cut their potatoes the fastest.

Randy, my stepdad, is downstairs in the garage and Hank Williams floats up with the sound of tools tinkering on old tractor parts. Summer time was in full sprawl and we had spent the morning weed eating and making the yard look nice. My little brothers operated the mowers while I got on hands and knees to weed my roses. Seldom did all of the members of the family come together to do anything in peace, but the times when we’d be cajoled into yard work were always good times.

After we finished trimming the yard and picking up the driveway, Mom and I would hang out the laundry. It has taken me up until adulthood to realize that my mother was born in the wrong era. She should have been born when she could hang billowy white clothes from a line in the south and a soldier in a neatly pressed uniform could have called on her. She should have been born in the roar of the twenties when she could have bobbed her hair and lived her life to the sound of jazz in a speakeasy.

We work together to clip the clothes up on the plastic green lines and I imagine that we’re wearing sundress and floppy straw hats instead of dirty tennis shoes and tank tops. It’s an automatic work that we can both do. We devise a strategy to hang out underwear behind the larger towels, because who really drives past here anyway and there’s nothing like sun warmed clothes.

The steaks would be defrosted by the time we had finished with the yard and after hanging the clothes our arms would have stopped shaking from the hour of weed whacking. Time to head in and make dinner.

There’s nothing like eating a meal that you’ve prepared. Not just throwing Hamburger Helper on the stove or making a box dinner. I mean taking the raw ingredients and shaping them into something delicious. I mean taking a bag of potatoes (the boil ‘em up, mash ‘em up, stick them in a stew kind) and frozen steaks and creating a meal that would give us a closure to a busy day.

“I think you guys have cut enough, Jesus, we’ll be eating potatoes for a week.” Mom flicks the ash of the end of her cigarette and drifts back into the kitchen with us. Outside the back door, where she operates the grill, our dog Blackie awaits scraps and another bowl of water—he’s thrown the original off of the porch in excitement.

Randy comes up the stairs and gets a cup of soda out of the fridge.

“The yard looks good, guys. Those roses look much nicer since you tidied them up, little one.” The compliment is natural and I smile as Mom gets the potatoes wrapped up in the foil. She chunks butter and onions along with salt and pepper into a foil wrap and takes them out on the porch with the steaks.

“Help your Momma get the table set.”

This part come naturally to us. Zack gets the plates, Brandon the silverware, and I survey the living room for cups that already have owners and seek out new cups for those without. Within the next twenty minutes dinner is on the table and we’re all enjoying the fruits of a day’s labor. Part of me is just glad to see that we could do things together like this. Most days are spent separate, Mom on the couch, Randy in the garage, and it felt like a rare treat for everyone to be together for something good.

The steaks are well done (I’ll find out a year later that I actually like my steak still bleeding) and the potatoes are crispy on the edges while soft toward the center of the circular slivers. They rest in a sauté of butter and spices, no onions for me, the picky eater. The foil is hot for a while, so I work on cutting my steak up while the heat and smell rises up from the potatoes.

Zack grabs the ketchup and Brandon gets more soda. My parents joke. No one is arguing over my eating habits or Brandon’s less than spectacular grades; no one is nagging on Zack for being unmotivated or slamming either parents with angry words. We’re just eating a meal. The sun is getting lower in the sky and we make plans to roast marshmallows after dinner—there’s just enough newspaper and dry wood to get a fire going in the burn barrel.

This is family. This is heaven.

***

“I’ve never made this like this before. I’m completely making this up as I go.” A couple months of living on our own has made me brave in the kitchen. I’ve improvised enough recipes that it comes naturally to me to meld together my mother’s potato recipe and one of the chicken recipes from work.

There’s not much natural light coming in to the kitchen and there’s no clothesline to hang our clothes out on, but there are several book cases and my writing desk in the living room. This is our home now. Our first home.

“Okay, baby. Is there anything I can do to help?” I shake my head no and put all of the weight of my body on the knife that I’m cutting potatoes with. It’s not a paring knife, but it will do. I offer the knife to Mike and he works at slivering the potatoes. I pull the foil out and preheat the oven. Our chicken is defrosting in the microwave.

Maroon 5 plays in the background and I sing to Mike as we put together our dinner. I throw the chopped potatoes on the foil with hunks of “tastes like butter” and season them. I add garlic in to flavor the chicken and cheese because I’m sure we could use more dairy than the dash we put in our coffee in the morning. One the chicken is diced, I mix it in with everything else in the foils and wrap them up around themselves. 

Fifty minutes in the oven and we have a hot dinner.

I don’t think about my mom in a hospital in Pittsburgh. I don’t think about her struggling to breathe as I rewrite her recipe for potatoes into a whole dinner wrapped up in silver foil.

We eat our dinner and laugh and it is just the two of us. We’re our new family.

***

Foiled Chicken and Potatoes

Servings: 2

Ingredients

4 thawed, boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 potatoes

8 table spoons of butter (4 table spoons per foil)

1 cup cheddar cheese

Salt

Pepper

Garlic Powder

Two sheets of foil roughly 14” long

Preheat the oven to 400°.

Cut potatoes into ¼ inch slivers.

Dish out potatoes into roughly equal servings on the foil (don’t get too worried about the portioning. Eye balling it should be fine.).

Add four table spoons of butter (or butter substitute, it doesn’t matter) to the foils.

Add ½ cup of cheddar cheese to each foil.

Season potatoes with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Dice chicken into cubes and divide evenly between foils.

Season foils again, lightly this time, with salt, pepper and garlic powder. (Aim mainly for the chicken.)

Pull the ends of the foils together and twist together until the contents are covered. Don’t worry if there are small parts where the foil doesn’t cover completely.

Place foils into a glass 13X9 pan.

Bake for 50 minutes.

Enjoy! Also, please check the chicken before consuming, I don’t want anyone to get sick!

Fuck Your Pinterest Wedding

Fuck Your Pinterest Wedding

Let me just start this out by saying that I love Pinterest. I love pinning and looking at photos and finding all sorts of things that inspire me. Pinterest is a force to be used for good to inspire and showcase the work and love of all people.

Now, I’m sure you’ve been into the Pinterest wedding tag, or perhaps you haven’t. If you have, you know that it’s a place full of great ideas on how to plan your wedding, pictures of wedding dresses and in general, a gathering of creative and innovative ideas for a wedding.

What no one tells you when you create your wedding board (your mind is full of wonder and ideas) is that this can be a bad thing. When I set out to plan my wedding, I had a few shaky ideas in mind. It was cloudy and I wanted the moon in the process, but I had a few ideas.

Since then, I have at least 3 melt downs from these feelings that I’m making a mistake with the choices in my wedding. I’m not the melt down type, but I am a perfectionist. Since creating a Pinterest, I’ve laid awake on many a night thinking that I’m ruining everything and that my wedding will be a disaster because I like things to be trim down to the details in order to create a harmony with an event such as a wedding. I want people to look at my wedding pictures and know that I was able to create an event that perfectly sums up the love that is happening between myself and the groom.

Let’s just be honest, I want to put my pictures up on Pinterest and have people pin them for ideas for their own weddings. I want the ‘oooh!’ and ‘aaaaaah!’ of knowing that I made the right choices.

This is where I’ve had to learn that I’ve gone wrong. The weddings I’ve seen on Pinterest have all been beautiful. I’ve looked at them with adoration and envy. I’ve looked at decked out ceremonies and boho brides, and I’ve wanted to do all of them. But the problem is, I haven’t wanted to do all of them because they showcase the important part of the wedding (you know… the Bride and the Groom). I wanted to do them because they’re pretty. Because they’d make good pictures. Because whatever I’m looking at (from a flowery ceremony back drop to flower crowns to ethereal wedding dresses that would never look good on my body) is most likely the latest trend in the Wedding tag.

I lost focus, between deciding flowers and color palettes, on what is important in the wedding. The fact that I’m marrying the love of my life and that all of my family and friends will be there. Things don’t have to be perfect. I don’t need to do every single DIY idea I see on Pinterest or hire a million dollar photographer for my million dollar venue (not that either of these things are bad, I just can’t feasibly afford them) to be happy.

I don’t need a Pinterest wedding to be happy. I need good food, family and friends, the dress (which I have) and, most of all, the Groom. I need to finish the wedding playlist and hire a caterer to make sure that we have something to eat. It’s not about having the best photographer or showing off the handmade decorations that I spent the summer creating. It’s about the union of myself to the coolest person I’ve met and the celebration that follows.