Random Discussions (RD): Part I

I have only a few things up in this head of mine, and rather than creating and overwhelming you with an entire post of my scattered thoughts, I'm going to whine about only three of them. Please read, and discuss. It's like homework, only more like therapy. And I'm getting the therapy from you guys for free.

Point 1:

I miss my friends.

I mean, I've still got all of them for the most part. Heck, I've got one girl back in my life from *gulp* 20 years ago, thanks to the book of face! The rest of them are scattered all over the state of Wyoming, and some others in different parts of the country. The point really isn't that I don't have any friends, because my friends are amazing, and still part of my daily life.

BUT. I miss having friends that are five seconds away should there be a friend disaster, an immediate excuse for a good time, or just to meet for a quick bite at the last minute. It's part of the repercussions of me moving away, and I was fully prepared for it...I think. I'm actually fine, until the feeling of loneliness sneaks up from behind. Example: I was at the bar the other night with my favorite man, hanging with some really cool people...and I realized that I missed SORELY the friends that would normally be there with me. There are two of you, in particular, that would have seen me from across the bar, and known by the look on my face what I was thinking, what I wanted to drink, and exactly what song I was thinking we needed to dance to. Le Sigh. I know it will come in good time, and I still had a blast, but I miss you.

Conclusion: I still have friends that are a mere phone call away. I still have friends that are actively part of my daily life, via phone, Facebook, text message, picture message, or even within an hour's drive. I'll make new friends, sure enough. I've got a good habit of that. And no matter how far away I move, or how close I am in vicinity to them, loneliness will always join me occasionally.

Point 2:

Weddings.

This is not about my past marriage, my next marriage, or my lack of marriage. This is just in general. Ah hem.

I love being friends with blushing, gushing brides. I've never been one to get envious, or feel that "always a bridesmaid, never a bride." feeling. I have, however, stood behind one or two, and noticed a few things.

#1. People take for granted how much time, effort, and lack of sleep goes in to these things.
#2. People have a terrible habit of making them about them, and not the bride and groom.
#3. You only get cake if you play nice. So stop playing not nice.

Conclusion: Planning them, is MUCH bigger than any of them expect. And while they think, or even tell you that they don't need your help, they're lying. They usually feel like they're absolutely drowning in their own bliss, and true that it may be that it IS bliss, and that they want to do it all themselves to make sure it gets done right, they're extremely overwhelmed. If all you do is sit and watch them make things happen, you're going to see some peace come in to the picture.

If you're in the wedding party, if you're related to the bride or groom, or if you're a best friend that's just getting a front row seat...it is your absolute DUTY to make sure that day goes off without a hitch (well...one hitch, get it, get it?!). You're there to support that love, you're there to comfort them, and you're supposed to be there for them every second of the planning stages, regardless of how "not a big deal" you think each step is, or how disconnected you think you are from the planning, or even how Bridezilla she's actually getting. I mean hi, she's dropping at least $6000, just to put on a show for YOU people to watch her take the next step. You do realize that your ticket to the show is free, right? Pamper the hell out of her.

Conclusion Part 2: I'm never planning a wedding.

Point 3:

I want to do everything.

I want to have a job doing Facebook. I want to waitress. I want to ride and train horses. I want to work in a retail store. I want to teach English. I want to work with special needs children. I want to be a vet. And it really bothers me that because I've changed rank in my "title" or pay, that people are assuming I'm settling for less than I deserve, or making poor choices.

Conclusion: I can't be everything, but there is absolutely nothing stopping me from trying everything once.

So, there you go. A massive rant about Things. I need therapy.

Yours Truly,
Nomz

** YES, WE’RE FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK; NO, YOU CAN’T COME TO MY WEDDING.

Dear darling readers,

I am getting married in 73 days. (And no, before you ask, I swear I’m not one of Those Brides neurotically counting down the days—it’s just that I get asked this question literally every time I see a certain chipper fellow from Quality Control, and I have to be prepared with the official answer. Because if I’m not, he asks me to guess. And then he also asks if my dress still fits. He also, by the way, refers to me primarily by my wedding date: “Ten ten ten!” I really am not kidding.)

Since we’re already talking numbers, I’m going to give you a few more.

Seven months ago, my future husband proposed to me, in the exact spot he first asked me to be his girlfriend in 7th grade; for you equally un-mathy people out there (I am WITH you!), that means we’ll be celebrating 12 years of forehead kisses & weird faces & late-night driving dates four days before we celebrate our first wedding anniversary. I know, right?

A few more numbers, and then I swear I’m done.

Four days after we got engaged, we made it Facebook official.
Two months later, we started planning.
And 140 is the maximum amount of people our wedding venue—a gorgeous historic theatre—can comfortably accommodate.

Somewhere in between the Facebook-official part and the “we have a really specific limit for our venue” part is where things start to get tricky.

See, darling readers, when you’re planning a wedding, you become embedded with this urge to share your glee with people. You want to shout from the 420-character-limit rooftops about how you’ve found your vendors, announce the day you find THE dress, discuss the delightful experience of making registries with your beloved—the whole nine yards.
You call upon your already-married Facebook friends for recommendations and to share links (people, there is a whole ‘nother blog’s worth of OMG to express over the sheer amount of bridal blogs out there; it’s like a left-hand sparkler grants you an all-access pass into the world of DIY everything & other people’s wedding photography); you post engagement pictures; more or less, you involve all 770+ of your Facebook friends in your wedding planning, never thinking twice about it.

Until, of course, your fantastic invitations arrive—and if you’re a typography/word nerd like me, you swoon over them three times more than any normal person—and you go to update your status, all, “Mrs. Almost-Bride is perched at the kitchen table, addressing invitations and listening to Pink Floyd.”
And then, one near-perilous second before you update, you stop to think; is it REALLY a good idea to broadcast this to the world?

In all honesty, darling readers, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it—that is, until I received a comment on my wall a few weeks ago.
To understand the context of said comment, the friend who left it was a friend from junior high and early high school—as in, we were friends then. The last time we hung out, we were both sporting Sonic uniforms and going home to our parents’ houses every night. The most we’ve hung out since then was the night each of us confirmed the other’s friendship on Facebook.
So, in short; not close. Barely acquaintances.

You can imagine my surprise when she posted on my wall, asking if I’d sent out invites yet; answering honestly, because we hadn’t, I replied, “Nope, not yet!” and left it at that—only to have her return with, “Oh good, because if I don’t get one, I’m gonna kick your butt!”

Consider my butt kicked.

The modern world is a magical place where social networking loops more people into your life on a daily basis than you’d ever be able to keep up with face to face; the problem, however, lies in events like weddings. Suddenly, people who you haven’t seen in person since you were 17 are assuming they’re invited, based on the sheer fact that you’re Facebook friends.

My dear, darling readers, I am ghost-blogging today to tell you that simply isn’t the way things roll. Yes, I will happily comment on your pictures from vacation (even the weird passenger seat self portraits—we’re Facebook friends, after all, it’s what we do); I will tag you in notes; I will have delightful wall-to-wall conversations about the splendidly superficial things in life.

But please, please please please, don’t make things any more awkward than need be by assuming and/or flat-out asking—on Facebook, in front of hundreds of strangers—that you’re coming to my wedding, or if you’re invited at all.

I’m asking you, oh friends of brides, on behalf of all my fellow Facebook brides, to remember that anything posted on a Facebook wall is the same as running up to someone & shouting at them in front of a silent crowd; even if you only intend for one person to hear it, everyone gets in on the fun.
This goes double for weddings, especially in cases where you’re very, very conscious that feelings can/will be hurt when people find out they’re not invited.

Will it happen anyway? Of course. But does it need to happen on the Book of the Face? Absolutely not.

So, with that said, dear darling readers—have you even been caught in a situation like the one I mentioned, whether as the “OMG CAN’T WAIT FOR YOUR WEDDING” commenter (who didn’t end up invited after all) or the bride on the other side?
Especially for all my already-tied-the-knot girls out there, how did you handle walking the line on Facebook between sharing your excitement and being conscious that not everyone reading would be invited to the big day?

-Ghost Blogger