Wedding Day

Who thought that getting married could be so simple!

Even when everything could have made it anything but easy: between the pandemic, the postponing, the uncertainty, the struggles, the waiting! But when we finally decided to just go for it, I knew it would be perfect! (Thats a lie, I knew it would be perfect - Nat)

Nathaniel, you make everything easier. Even when its complicated, even when its hard, or chaotic, or awful. You make life simple.

I always thought meeting the man I would marry would be transformational. And it was.

I also believed getting married would be such a big deal. And it is.

But it's also been far simpler than I ever realized.

It's simple because you love the simple things about me. Even though I used to believe that the person I'd marry would love me because they find me extraordinary, I learned from you that its much greater to be loved for the simple things about you. You love me because I'm ordinary in my own way, and that means I have don't have to be extraordinary; it means that you love me even when I'm lame, or irrational, or boring, or stubborn. You love the things about me that I don't think twice about, like how round me face is, or how dorky I am.

How grand it is to be loved for who you are when you're not trying; the things that stay when you are at your worst; the things that are fundamentally, ordinarily you. 

You reason with me when I'm unreasonable. You make everything seem doable. You make my simplicity my strength.

 I love the simple things about you. I love your humor. I love the way you love. I love the fact that my family loved you from the start. I knew you were the one when my Opa and Oma loved you when they met you at the airport; when my grouchy cat came to sit on your lap even though she never liked anybody, least of all strangers. I knew it when saying yes made far more sense than saying no. I love the way you play with my brothers, ever since that spring in Manitoba when it suddenly seemed like they were your brothers too.

I love your spontaneity, the way you run into the bushes, hop over streams, take me out for pancakes. We used to joke that we didn't go on dates, we went on adventures; and if dating you was an adventure, I can only imagine how grand it'll be to be married to you.

Let our life always be simple like this. Because when everything is wrong and life is a mess, the simple things keep us going: like cuddling up to you, laughing with you, grabbing midnight snacks with you, getting tickled by you.

How far we've come already.

We've followed each other across three different provinces. We've had adventures in new places, and faced countless changes. We've said goodbye way too many times, and counted too many days apart. We've built a new life out of pieces of our old ones and made it uniquely our own.

But in all the challenges we've encountered, you've always been there, at the end of the day, the wonderfully, extraordinarily, most fundamentally simple thing about my life.

And no matter where we go, and no matter what happens, let it always stay this way.

Oh, what a wonderful wedding day.

~ P.S. ~

Thank you to every one who tuned in to watch us get married from afar and supported us even though you couldn't be there! You filled our hearts with joy!

Thank you to those of you celebrated with us, and those who are patiently waiting for the day we can finally celebrate together! We await that day with such excitement!

Thank you to my brothers for making the day possible, for helping to run our wedding day and filling it with treasures!

Thank you to my new siblings, for your advice and support!

Thank you mom and dad for making our wedding perfect, even though it wasn't the way any of us ever thought it would be! (We got married in your backyard, even though it wasn't the one we intended and imagined all these years).

And finally, for the future, thank you to my new mom and dad for your support from afar as we eagerly await our wedding to come, in your backyard this time ;)

We hope to see you all soon...

Graduation

It's been almost a year since I graduated, but I realized I never shared my grad pictures with you.

Looking back at last year; Within the last couple months of high school I was so busy juggling work, school, and some things I was struggling with at the time, that it never even hit me that I was finally leaving high school for good. I was finally free to set out on my own path.

My mom found a cheap grad dress online and planned my grad party. Meanwhile I scrambled to get the highest GPA I could muster.
Then, the night before my graduation, as my dear friend Elli made me every concoction we could think of to get rid of the cold I was fighting, I realized, I'm graduating tomorrow. Tomorrow the past ends and the future begins.
And, to my horror, I wasn't the least bit excited.

 

Now, in the present, I am beginning preparations for College. I can't believe in just a few months I will be leaving my childhood behind me and stepping into the future. 
I have been dreaming about studying English Literature for as long as I can remember. I must have been in the fourth grade when I decided that this was what I wanted to do, and now, finally, I am stepping out of the dream and into the reality that will get me there.

It was almost a year ago (around the time I shared my post "Wishes" on here,) that I decided to take a year off before going to College. Since then I have wondered often what the future will hold, and how on earth I will manage to support myself throughout my College career, but, at the same time, I simply cannot bring myself to worry about it. No matter how unlikely and frightening it may be to invest my entire being into one single dream with so much uncertainty wedged between it, when I look into the possibilities of the future, I feel peace. I feel at peace when I walk into the unknown, because I know that He knows where He is taking me.

I know that He was the one who gave me these desires, at an age when I barely even knew who I was, I knew who I wanted to become. 
I was hoping to finish writing my book this year. But, over the winter, the words seemed to evade me. I wrote and rewrote. I stayed up many snowy nights with little to no progress. 
The silence lasted all throughout the Winter. I felt hopelessly forsaken.
Then, finally, I realized - or remembered, for I knew this one - I couldn't finish this book at all. Not in five lifetimes could I  finish it on my own. 
I don't have the words to write this book, He does. He has the words, I am just the listener. 

When I look back on the Summer day of my High School graduation I know it will forever be a golden memory. The day when God, with a little help from Elli, miraculously healed my cold for just one day. When I skipped prom to go shooting in my prom dress with my brothers. 
When I worried that my heart was not intact with my brain, cause 'Why wasn't I more excited?!'
Looking back, leaving High school did not feel like an ending, it was not a conclusion, but rather the beginning of everything that will come after. 

I would like to thank everyone who was a part of this wonderful day with me. For my mom, who bought my prom dress when I really didn't deserve it and planned a glorious garden party. 
To my Brothers, for dancing with me through the grass and making me feel special.
To my Dad, who captured the whole day on camera so that I never will forget it. The pictures turned out beautiful.
To my friends, who came and shared the day with me, even those who are too far away and watched it through the camera ;)
And of course, I want to thank my heavenly father, who used this year to remind me how helplessly fragile I am without him, and that he will give me the strength, and the words, I need to go where he is taking me.
Thank you! I will never forget it!

Well, I'm off to register for College. Wish me luck, although I doubt I'll need it :)