Progress was made folks...

Our wedding date is set for July 3, 2019. It was set way back in November of 2009, in an effort to stake our claim on each other, but refrain from rushing into anything.

Originally, we were thinking November 2019, but a certain TeacherMommy whined that it had to be outside of the school year, so we accommodated her request, and made it for 14 years from the first time The Knight was crazy enough to tell me he loved me. If you recall, that went horribly wrong. For reference, somewhere around early July 2009 I told him I loved him. Yes it took me four years. So I guess it depends on how you view it, we either rushed into engagement, or we took our sweet ass time. (At least one of us did.)

I used to think he was kidding when he told me he'd just wait, but clearly he called my bluff. Years went by, life happened, and then there I was asking him if he wanted to get married. Of course this came as a surprise to him -- he was planning on asking again in November 2010 -- as he was busy making sure he went much slower this time around, as to not scare me away.

And that's how we came up with 2019. Before I turned 40, but hopefully after I graduated college. Plenty of time to become grown ups before making the dive into marriage.

Though I know I may have questioned my ability to make such a decision, I would've married him that day, had I been legally free for such things. The problem is, I wasn't sure that I'd ever know that my reasons for marrying him were what they should be, rather than the hole in my life where my best friend once stood. And I think there were others around me thinking the same damned thing. Especially since most people only knew of us as having had a relationship post-Jason's death, and it was merely months before.

Let's face it, things have been up and down ever since. My health is stable, my health is shit. Get pregnant, have a miscarriage. Lather, rinse, repeat OH WAIT, you have PTSD and don't get in the shower on your own for months.

A year ago, I became legally clear for legally binding myself to someone new. Namely, The Knight.

Shortly after my last miscarriage, we started to talk about things that gave us a reason to look ahead. One of those things was our eventual marriage. We'd discuss possible places, and who should be there, the ever present argument over whether my ex-husband gets to give me away, or be the Best Man.

There must have been a dozen viable options for our wedding. On a cruise; a hundred different beaches; Mexico; Italy; Belize; Newport, RI; Middle of a cornfield; in a shady bar; in a friend's backyard (also on a beach).

Who would be there also varied. Just us? Family? Seriously, we have a lot of family. A few close friends? Everyone we've ever known, just to prove we did it?

The conversations would spark up in Emergency rooms, when he found me crying on the bathroom floor, and when I couldn't fall asleep. We had a lot of potential wedding plans, and years to make them. But the thing I remember most vividly about those horrible days, was how much better it was when he distracted me with all the possibilities.

Then one day I was drafting away, as I did, and I saw the post Dear Jill in the drafts. So I emailed him So Then I said...

That changed nearly everything. Would we wait until July 3, keeping the day but throwing years of waiting aside because we were at a point in which we were both kind of anxious to actually do something about our engagement? Could we actually get married in a week? (Not easily in Massachusetts, in case you are wondering.) Where, when and who took on a whole new urgency. We had so many options in discussion, and had just let them marinate because we had YEARS before we really had to choose, and now we changed it all up.

I'm happy to say, decisions were made...