Saturday in Manhattan

The closer Steven and I get to the wedding, the less I sleep. I sort of fade in and out from sleepy wedding planning to full on wedding obsession.

BAM! We're getting married!

But also, my friend Mel gets married ta-day. As in, at four o'clock this afternoon.

It feels really good to be in Manhattan, where I met her and where her friends became my friends and mine became hers. We're not freshman anymore, but we sure as hell dance and giggle like we'll be young forever.

So how awesome is it to be awake at six, pre-heating the oven for breakfast casserole and playing with each others hair? Ridiculously awesome.

And it's really special to be girls on the verge of bride-dom, taking a deep breath together, knowing that our intendeds are somewhere close by and waiting.

Congratulations, Mel and Mike! I think you're great :)

Miss McKenna writes a post

Right before a significant life change, I always feel especially motivated to get myself together, gather up loose ends, and donate half of my stuff to charity. I've been doing a lot of this lately, looking forward to the wedding and MARRIAGE and moving, and it's not so much preparatory as it is theraputic.

I boxed up half of my clothing, un-boxed half of the half and put it back on hangers... some things are just so damn hard to give away, you know? (It's also nice to have reminders that I once fit into "this" shirt and "those" pants.)

It's been a rapid ascent into adult-hood since Steven came home in September, and I haven't always done a good job of putting on my big girl pants and pushing onwardho! to the things of tomorrow. Really, I haven't even been rejoicing in the present. So that's what I'm working on now: being in the moment and that's a freaking full time job, folks. Especially with all the sweet junk going on right now.

The truth is, I've loved being a Miss. I've loved being young with a vintage soul. I love that my parents gave me more than a house as a kid and have always welcomed me home as an adult. I am so blessed, and even though I tend to mope around in a tres glamorous way, I have known all along that my life is special and awesome. And it's moving so quickly.

Seriously, I know it's nothing new to say that, but I catch myself all the time thinking that if I don't straighten up and love me some daily, average, precious moments, I'm only going to be half of a person who ran out of time to be whole.

I want to be an awesome McKenna. I want to be a crazy awesome Mrs. McKenna Wright. I want Steven to look at our wedding day and see himself in the details, even though I hoarded the planning. But more than that, I want him to look at my life and see himself in all the good things.

I'm sorry you can't all marry him. I really am, because he's amazing and kind and brave. We're going to have a full life and I thank God that with his help I can... well, suck the marrow out of it. Gross.

But thank you, God. And thank you family and friends who have given me boxes of letters I will never be able to throw away, and pictures that give my stomache the special feeling of being on a hill.

And thank you, Steven, for making me feel like the best kind of writer.

I live in an unfinished basement.

Really. I'm confessing it to you. It's worth it though, to live in this basement, because it's really warm even though it's freezing outside.

(I'm lying. It's cold as Voldemort's heart down here.)

The truth is, I live in a cold basement because my parent's are good to me during my transition into graduated/married/adult life. I also live in a cold basement because I graduated a year early just so I could impress people right before I unimpressed them by saying that I have (and have and have) no idea what I want to do.

"I want to write. I want people to read what I write." Is it so pathetic that I haven't written a blogpost since October? One of my favorite professors at K-State said that writers write. "If you're not writing, you're not a writer." Whoa, no wonder she was my favorite.

"I want to speak Spanish." And not just so I can sneak a listen in on people's conversations but so I can... well, I don't know. I just want to finish something I start, and once upon a semester I started learning Spanish.

Well, the list goes on.

I expect no one will read this. Or maybe the eight people who follow me will read this post. But Steven says that's not the point. He says that I should write because it's good for me to do it and that I'll get better and better. (Isn't that what you said, Steven?)

The Goods: We're Engaged!

When Steven left June 10th, 2008 for the Peace Corps, we had known each other for about eight months, five of those we spent as a couple. From the beginning, we knew that the chances of him leaving were good, meaning he'd be away from the U.S. and electricity for two years. Knowing that made us cautious, nervous to sign up for such a spaced-out commitment, especially with having had so little time together. Then we went on a missions trip in March to Arkansas which hugely impacted our life as a couple and because of it, we decided to embrace who we were together, expecting to make it through the distance.

He came home once, the summer of 2009, for a month-long visit. While he was home, we spent every day together catching up and reaffirming that we still wanted only to be with each other. When he left to go back to his village, we were certain we could make it one more year to the end of his service. We talked constantly over a terrible connection, imagining what we would do once we were together and where we would go and when. For my graduation gift, Steven bought me a plane ticket to west Africa.

On August 12th, 2010 I walked out of the Ouagadougou airport and saw him in person for the first time in over a year. Hugging him, knowing that we wouldn't have to say goodbye like that ever again was so freeing. And we spent the next three unrealistically wonderful weeks together in his village and traveling through Europe. It. Was. Awesome. I would go back to Burkina Faso tomorrow. His friends and neighbors blessed me with how proud they were of Steven and how much they valued his time there. They loved him so well for all of us who couldn't be there when he needed friends and family. Seeing how much he meant to them and how hard it would be for him to leave ALMOST made me want to let him stay... But I didn't. I brought him home with me along with five hundred pictures and a suitcase of souvenirs.

Early in October, under the pretense of putting together a birthday surprise for me, Steven printed hundreds of those pictures from our trip and pieced together a photo album of our memories and negotiated for days for the perfect moment to present me my surprise. I wish I could say that I was patient while I waited for my gift... I even begged him a time or two. But he made me wait for the perfect sunset over Lake Shawnee on a beautiful October day before he slipped my leather-bound album from his bag. Along with the pictures, he wrote letters and notes describing not only why he loved our trip but why he loves me and why he will always love me. At the end of the album, he told me that even though he doesn't know where we're going, he wants to go with me. He promised to love me and to adventure with me. And on the very last page, next to the last picture, he placed a sticky note over the words "Will You Marry Me?" When I looked up at him, rambling on like a crazy person and happier than I've ever been, he had my ring in his hands.

Do I even have to tell you that I said yes?

I did.

I think this is wonderful

A friend of mine linked this to his facebook. After having watched it for a few times, I'd like to pass it on too. It's sweet and true; enjoy!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs&feature=autofb

Ci-Ci-Ci-Cicada!

I have a Matryoshka doll key cover. It's so awesome; it covers my house key with its adorable, rubber body, giving my key chain a smidge of character. Unfortunately, it covers too much of my house key which makes it impossible to unlock the front door unless I remove the key completely. This isn't a problem until nighttime, when I'm standing on my porch with a swarm of light-loving bugs clunking into my face, the door, the walls etc. while I try to work the key from the holder and into the door.

Tonight, a cicada tonked and buzzed into my cranium several times. And while I was standing there screaming and cowering, reaching a hand towards the key stuck in the door, my friend Caitlin was standing on the driveway laughing at me. She waited for me to deal with the situation, which I did, and that was that. But as I'm sitting here, rethinking whether or not the matryoshka doll has got to go, I have to admit: it was pretty cool to see a cicada in action, rather than its pale remainder stuck to the side of a tree.

The point of all this, you ask?

I don't know.

What would Jillian Michaels say about eating marshmallows?

Seriously, I want to know; Not for personal reasons, of course. I am not, at this very moment, eating Toasted Coconut Marshmallows, one after the other.

No. That would be sick.

Anyway, we're in the twenties now in the Burkina Faso/Steven countdown; 29 days to be exact. It almost makes me insane to look back to the year 2008, when we were just beginning and there were over 700 days to the end of his Peace Corps service. At this point in the journey, it's fun to count days. I'll tell you what would not be fun to count: number of calling cards used, number of dropped calls, the number of times I've said "What? I can't understand you" because of shite-like phone service. Ah yes, it has been an experience abundant with numbers.

I'm pretty thankful for all of it. I'm certainly good at giving pat answers for why I SHOULD be thankful for his time in Africa whilst I hold things down in Kansas. But overall, I'm glad it's almost over. As Willy Wonka would say, "We've got so little to do and so much... scratch that, so little time and so much to do..." What I'm trying to say, is that it's probably time we had a fluid conversation, a high five, a night out.

Whoa. It's going to be something.

So now, I've got twenty-nine days to pack a bag for several, widely different destinations.

And... back to my marshmallows.