Earlier this spring at a doctor’s appointment:
Doctor: So, do you
have any summer plans?
Me: Well, I’m getting
married in the fall.
Doctor: Oh, so you’ll
have lots of wedding planning.
Me: Well, actually, this summer is about the stuff, the
merging of the stuff . . .
When a young couple gets married, they, especially the
bride, spend a lot of time planning their wedding, thinking of all sorts of
meaningful, lovely details to make everything perfect. For my first
wedding, I spent the summer before making all sorts of things by hand – table
decorations, intricate programs, struggled over wording for the invitations,
etc. The amount of time put into wedding
plans is considerable.
This fall, I am getting married to a wonderful man, the
second marriage for both of us. But now,
we are middle aged. We both have a few
decades of adulthood under our belts, which means we also have a lot of stuff –
emotional stuff, experiential stuff, family stuff, financial stuff and just
stuff stuff. Yes, we have also put some
time and thought into our wedding details, but it is minimal. I feel so much differently this time
around. Frankly, I would be very happy
to just hire someone to take care of all the wedding details and then just show
up for the party.
I am not worried about the wedding. We have picked competent professionals to
take care of the details and I’m sure that it will be wonderful. It may not actually be perfect, but it will be special, lovely and meaningful to us. We will have cherished family and friends
with us to help us celebrate. It will be
awesome and I can’t wait.
However, I am worried – about the stuff. And when you have been through a few decades
of adulthood, you know that it is silly to worry about the wedding, when all
the other stuff is much more important to make the marriage itself work well.
So, that’s what I/we are doing this summer. We’re dealing with the stuff. And we have a lot to work through. How do our daily routines fit together? How do we decide how to spend money? How do we divide housework (and how much mess
can you handle)? How do you interact with family and friends? How much attention do you need from me? How do I deal with the kids?! (First time
step-mom!) And the biggest part of the
merge – the stuff stuff: How on God’s green Earth am I going to fit my whole
house into your whole house?
That task, of course, will take a lot of negotiation,
individually and together. I am in the
thick of it now and even though it is pretty stressful, I do think it will
work. Thankfully, Jordan has been very
reassuring about this process. We both
will keep some things, but we will both get rid of things too. So, for me, I have really had to think hard about
what furniture, what pictures, what kitchen gadgets and all the other stuff I
really want to keep. I have purged a lot. During my spring break, I rented a dumpster
in anticipation of the merge. Going
through old papers, pictures and memories
-- it is actually therapeutic, but also makes me realize that I have had
certain mementos sitting in a closet for 15 years without looking at them. So, it’s not too hard to part with them.
Our wedding is in November -- that will be the completion of
the merge. We have been joking that
instead of people giving us wedding
gifts, we can set out stuff for people to take with them instead. In lieu of a
shower, my family suggested I have a yard sale.
The wedding itself will be a very special day, a day where we will make
public promises to each other and celebrate our merge. It is indeed very important, but it is just
one day at the beginning of our new journey.
We will have more things to work out with each other from time to time,
some more negotiations (that wallpaper for instance. . . ), but I know that we
have gained some wisdom along the way in our lives and that we will be able to
work through whatever new stuff we
find along the way.
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