Usually when I have a migraine all I want to do is sleep it off, and I rarely have trouble *getting* to sleep (even if I just woke up). Well, I've got a migraine now, but I can't sleep to save my life. Al is snoring (softly), and I can't stop thinking about all the things that could go wrong this week.
Did Al tell John and Kathy that they were invited to the rehearsal dinner? Will Al be able to arrange for the walk-through with the caterer and the park director on Wednesday? Have we even finalized where we want the buffet table, and what color the linens should be? What if Juliana's out sick on Monday, and I can't get translations of all the things Al wants the dj to say in Korean? Is it unreasonable of me to ask her to translate all that stuff? What if we're not giving the dj enough time to learn what to say? Where the heck is the veil? Will it be in by Thursday, when I pick up my dress? What if the cake doesn't arrive?
I'm feeling quite nauseous at the moment, and I can't tell if it's the migraine or just nerves. I'm not in the least nervous about getting married; I am, however, nervous as hell that we won't be able to pull off the actual wedding. I've been reminding myself for the past couple weeks that time doesn't stop with the wedding—we'll have every weekend for the rest of our lives to clean out the garage, re-do the floor in the kitchen, plant flowers, visit friends—but the fact of the matter is that there *is* limited time to get a few specific things done. We need to finalize everything with all the vendors, finish getting gifts for all the participants, get a final count to the caterer (believe it or not, there are still a couple people who haven't RSVPed), get "must play" and "do not play" lists to the dj, find a CD player that doesn't make a beeping noise every time the play or stop button is pressed, order food for the skating party on Saturday, pick up extra food items for the wedding reception, order sushi from Whole Foods, assign someone to pick up said sushi... OK, there's probably about a dozen things I'm forgetting, but I'm starting to make myself crazy.
My friend Jean gave me a piece of advice on Wednesday. She said, "one thing that helped me as I was preparing for my wedding was to think, 'how do I want to remember the days leading up to my wedding? Do I want to remember how happy I was, or that I was a stressball?'" I'm starting to worry that I might remember the stressball.
Thursday night at our last meeting with the officiant, I was totally calm and relaxed, and so was Al. She couldn't believe it. From almost the moment we left that meeting, however, things went downhill. By the time we made it to the Dunbarton Bridge, I had destroyed the sourdough baguette we'd bought at Whole Foods after leaving the church, there were breadcrumbs everywhere, I skinned a knuckle during the tantrum and was still frustrated as hell, and part of the baguette was missing. (We found it the next morning under the driver's seat.)
Since then I've sort of been up and down; yesterday I was a bit depressed and was beating myself up for being fat, ugly, etc., but today, after a full night's sleep, was better. Al and I got a lot of work done around the house: he pulled up the old brown linoleum in the upstairs bathroom and put down some new vinyl tiles that look great, and I painted the rest of the stairs out front and hung new house numbers. He cleaned the upstairs while I made dinner, and then I packed up all my mats and frames and cleaned the kitchen while he made dessert. We're still in the process of cleaning the living room and mopping the kitchen floor, but we feel pretty proud of what we accomplished today. Now, if only I could sleep...
Posted by Lori at September 29, 2002 12:42 AM