Not A Rom-Com

In my several years of being active in the dating world, I’ve discovered one steadfast reality: that love stories aren’t the way Hollywood tells us they should be. Sure, I’ve had my fair share of incredibly romantic moments but I’ve never had a partner try to complete my bucket list before I die, or been serenaded on a plane with Billy Idol’s guitar, and by no account did a young Shakespeare ever dedicate a classic play to me. By this point I think it’s safe to say that the picture painted for us every year by writers and studio executives rarely holds a fragment of truth.

But if I have learned something from these leagues of movies that inevitably flood out of Hollywood every time a holiday/special occasion/any occasion for couples to get sappy rolls around, it’s that the most important part of any love story is to follow your heart, and be true to yourself. A lesson which ultimately (regardless of how atrocious some of these movies end up being) is still very important in life and in love. It’s also one I’ve had to fully recognize while planning my own wedding.

My fiancé and I got engaged this past August, and within less than 2 weeks of announcing it we’d already decided on the basics: a summer wedding, outdoor location, and a date smack dab between our two birthdays; it seemed, in all appearances, perfect. Suggestions poured in from helpful relatives too, on everything from food to décor to my dress, and for my part I was thrilled about that. I was what I’d call a “reluctant bride”; not reluctant to marry my partner but reluctant to involve myself in the entire mindset of what it means to be an engaged female. All the wedding details that seemed so infinitely important to other people didn’t feel very important to me and I was more than happy to let others take the reins and steer us towards the altar. As long as I came out on the other side of the day married to the one I love, I thought I could be happy.

But as the months went by, I felt more and more anxiety building within me. The minute talk about the wedding came up, I became frustrated, tears formed, and I felt like throwing my hands in the air and calling it off altogether. But I couldn’t understand why, and neither could my fiancé; for a while there I’m sure he believed I was having cold feet and that he was the problem, not the wedding itself that was forming in our future.

Finally however, the realization hit me: it wasn’t that I didn’t want a wedding, it was that I didn’t want this wedding. For starters, I’ve never been particularly fond of summertime. Being a fair-skinned, dark-haired individual who burns easily, sun really isn’t my thing. From May through till September I essentially become a vampire: the blinds in my house remain closed at all times and I don’t go out in the daylight without sunglasses and a hood. (No joke there… if one was to go through my family photo albums you’d be lucky to find a single summer picture of me that I wasn’t squinting in.) And brightness aside, there’s the heat too: when summer comes around every year I usually find that I hate all the clothing I own, everything feels sticky, and my hair is thick and frizzy and impossible to deal with. Needless to say if there’s a time of the year where I feel particularly unattractive, summer would be it. So why was I having a summer wedding?

Then there was the time commitment: I’m a full-time student as well as part-time employee and my fiancé is overcoming a serious injury that occurred just prior to our engagement which is a full-time job in itself. Simply put, we had bigger fish to fry this year than having a perfectly planned wedding, and for our sakes we needed to just get it over and done with (as unromantic as that sounds).

And I can’t forget the ridiculous idea of having my wedding outdoors… while it sounds nice in theory, the thought of being chased at my “rustic” open-air reception by bees and mosquitoes (how I usually spend my summer evenings) was my definition of a nightmare.

So, after an emotional conversation with my fiancé we decided to move our wedding date up from July to March, regardless of what anyone else would think about it. March has always been a month I’ve loved; warm rain showers, the smells of spring, and the return of life after a cold winter stir my soul in a way that July never has. It felt perfect. So we settled on March 23^rd, and besides the confusing pregnancy questions I faced there was little resistance to our decision.

And for the first time since our engagement I felt like I could breathe. I no longer felt my finger itching with the ring around it, I didn’t start hyperventilating at the words “wedding” or “bride”, and despite my best efforts I started to actually care about what our special day was going to look like. It was as though asserting myself once and following my heart opened up a whole new person inside of me who not only had real wedding opinions, but felt brave enough to stand up for them.

I have to say, I liked this new identity. While visiting a local jewelry store with my fiancé to browse wedding bands a few weeks later, I felt that familiar suffocation every time the sales associate put a sparkling, diamond encrusted band around my finger insisting it matched my engagement ring perfectly. I didn’t agree, and while the little voice in my head whispered that maybe I should just go for the stereotypical band and not face any questions or criticisms, my new voice spoke up louder and stated flatly that I didn’t like them. So instead I found a simple textured band with (GASP!) no diamonds online and promptly fell in love with it.

And now I find myself 8 weeks away from my wedding feeling incredibly excited, impatient, and overjoyed that I get to celebrate this and take such a huge step with the love of my life. In a matter of months I went from absolutely dreading my wedding to fervently counting the days on the calendar, simply because I decided that I didn’t want to do this anyone’s way but mine and my partner’s. Sure, it’ll probably be nothing like almost every rom-com and link on Pinterest has told me is the only way to get married; our cuisine is Indian, our décor is distinctly Fall themed, and I won’t be patronizing the female guests by tossing my bouquet while yelling “crawl for it bitches!” But it will be beautiful, and it will feel like us, and most importantly I’ll be completely and utterly happy with it. Which, to me is perfection in a way that “you had me at hello” or an awkward Hugh Grant never could be.

Adapting to Change

About a week ago when my fiancé and I woke up in the morning, we noticed that something was a little off with our cat. Normally she is happy to see us but disinterested in anything else and, as cats are nocturnal, eventually finds her way to her bed and sleeps away most of the day. This morning however, her behavior was different: she meowed like she was being tortured, circled our feet endlessly, and sprang up like a rocket every time we moved in the direction of her food/litterbox area. Realizing she was unnaturally hungry, I fed her, and she devoured the kibbles in seconds. However, the next day the same thing took place, and then again the day after that. She started doing it at night too before her dinner feeding, usually starting around 4pm and continuing until 6 or so when we finally gave in.

I was perplexed. We’ve owned our cat since we adopted her from the SPCA almost a year ago now (wow!) and not once, not even in the first days we owned her did she ever behave this aggressively towards feeding time. So what had changed?

A couple days into this madness, my fiancé casually remarked to me: “maybe it’s because I’ve been feeding her so much food.”

“What?” I asked, confused and also instantly suspicious. “What do you mean?”

And then he went on to explain that he’d discovered old tins of wet cat food in some of our moving boxes, and so on top of giving her dry food at meal times he’d also been adding in half a can of wet food… a feast, essentially, to a small feline. And that this routine of gratuitous overfeeding had continued for days.

Maybe our cat thought she was going to be starved soon, and that this was her last meal. Or maybe she’s just an animal who couldn’t resist the buffet in front of her. Either way, my fiancé had essentially trained her to eat more than she was generally accustomed to, until soon that became her new normal and the little scoop I’d been giving her wasn’t enough… Understandably after devouring it she was still hungry.

It was upon realizing this that a simple thought occurred to me: everything is adaptable. We can change almost anything in our lives that we put our minds to… develop new routines, new habits, even entirely new ways of thinking simply by altering the standard. Thinking about this in my own life, I realized that it applies completely.

Almost daily, I eat some sort of green vegetable with every meal. But things weren’t always this way, or even remotely close to it… I thought I was eating healthy but in reality I wasn’t; cereal, processed white bread, heavy rices, apples, and junk essentially rounded out my diet. And I didn’t ever think that would change! Besides the basics such as carrots, peppers, and iceberg lettuce, vegetables were completely unpleasant to me and I had no interested in going near them. But out of a desire to have better control over my moods and stomach issues I decided to start adding them to my fridge, and little by little my vegetable collection grew, as did my cravings for them. My bravery developed too, and I began to start trying new things I previously wouldn’t have touched with a ten foot pole; I was pleasantly surprised by what I discovered. As the months have gone on this has expanded and expanded to the point that I can now honestly say that I ADORE vegetables; spinach, broccoli, kale, asparagus, and tomatoes (my once sworn enemy) are some of my favourites. And that change started to lead to other changes too; my rices are now whole grain, as is my bread, and seeds, fruits, and nuts carry me through the day.

Of course I’m not perfect, and I definitely indulge now and then, but as a general rule I avoid the rich, starchy, sugary, salty, fatty foods of my past, and my body and mind feel infinitely clearer for it. I now understand the connection between what we eat and how we function, which, surprisingly is not something I ever truly understood until a few months ago, and now when I eat a big bowl of green veggies I don’t feel like I’m depriving myself I feel like I’m rewarding myself with delicious nutrient goodness. What better gift is there than that?

SO THIS IS WHAT I LEARNED TODAY: That change ISN’T as scary as it seems. That no matter how intimidating or frightening or impossible or uncomfortable something seems, it’s just an adjustment that one day will seem completely normal. And that no matter how badly I don’t want to go on that run in the snow, or shower in cold water to make my hair shiny, or dump mushrooms into my pasta because the recipe calls for it, it’s worth doing anyways, just to keep life interesting. I learned that new experiences are how we keep from becoming stagnant. No positive big change is ever going to kill me (fingers crossed…) it just takes some getting used to. Anything is possible; any lifestyle can become “normal” to the people who live it long enough. There’s a first time for everything, and that means you have the power to make your life into whatever you want it to be; it just begins with taking that first step in the right direction.

A little lesson from life’s imperfections.