Okay, Life's a fact. People Do Fall In Love. People Do Belong To Each Other.

No matter how in depth I write this I wont be able to begin to explain to anyone what is what like. My words are so inadequate for the moments and emotions and vast beauty. However, I will make an attempt because I have a most awful memory and if I dont do this quite soon no one may ever know, except for him.

Yesterday had been an average day. Work had been busy and the highlight had been a relatively decent workout including a call with a friend that had been away. I napped after work and decided to dress down as I was meeting Kristin to look at venues. You see Jeff and I had been talking about marriage. We knew we wanted to go for it. We had looked at rings and ultimately found a jeweller that would design one for me. But that decision had only been made days earlier and I knew it would be weeks. So I was nearly content starting arrangements and impatiently waiting for a proposal.

So there I was, driving around town with Kristin looking slightly more ghetto than my usual unmade self. We looked at a few places and talked about if he would ever pop the question. When we arrived at Ralph Klein Park I felt like it wasnt the vibe we wanted for such an event but the grounds were gorgeous so I was keen to wander. Kristin needed to call her husband whom she had been texting all evening so she sent me on my way.

I had noticed a message from my dear friend Zaina so pulled out my phone and was texting her about bubble baths as I wandered, obviously paying close attention to my surroundings.

Then I noticed Jeff on the walkway I was headed towards. I had asked him earlier in the day if he could meet up with Kristin and I because he had been super particular about venues when we talked the weekend before and I felt frustrated that I couldnt find one he liked. He had told me he had a typical work meeting but would try. So I yelled out "What are you doing here?" and felt quite pleased inside that he made it to the last stop of the night. I asked about his meeting as I walked closer and then noticed A TON of spiders on the railings. Due to my arachnophobia I walked in the exact middle of the walkway over the water in attempts to not die and made several comments about the creepy spiders. It wasnt until I turned the corner towards Jeff that I saw the rose petals and candles and then heard "I will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab. 

I was confused and I teared up. I knew but I had no idea. The next few minutes were beyond anything I could say or imagine. He hugged me and told me all the things any girl would give anything to hear. And next thing I knew he was down on one knee. I was crying as he asked and honestly was in complete shock. It all had just happened so perfect and the music was going and the scenery was amazing and there we were. I finally noticed the ring and he told me it was a temporary ring until mine was finished. In complete puzzlement and fear I asked if I had to give the ring back when mine came (as the one I now had on was gorgeous) he just laughed. I didnt. This ring is to become an heirloom he said, I commented that it meant we would have to have kids then. 

As we turned around I finally realized it was an acoustic guitarist playing Death Cab for me just up above on the deck overlooking our spot. And then I saw the photographer. Someone had just taken a zillion photos of me crying.. and looking ghetto...

So hand in hand we walked inside to meet up with Kristin as we had come to check the place out. Jeff said I could freshen up but it was just Kristina and I had nothing with me so I looked in a window and wiped away some mascara and walked in with tear filled eyes.

As we walked we talked about the potential of the building with the lights coming on as we went. Then I saw the room Kristin was in as she opened the door.. the tears poured. All of our families were there along with our grandparents and closest friends. Everyone knew. Even two of my closest friends knew. They all cheered and hugged us and I cried more and it was beyond a fairytale.(Note: I had talked to all of my family yesterday separately and been with both his sisters in the last two days and no one said a word!) 

The room was all done with antique flowers and teal table cloths, and non-alcoholic lovely drinks, and cupcakes and strawberry shortcake and the ceiling was covered in balloons. And on the string of each balloon was a reason why he loved me. It was literally everything I love all together. And it was romantic. I hope the pictures can describe this better. It was a room of me basically. Like someone created my feelings and put them into objects.

So we all talked and cried and smiled and everyone told us it was about time. It was a whirlwind and the romance and perfection of it was overwhelming. It was just us like I wanted but he had prepared for a complete celebration because he knew I would want to tell my family immediately. It was so well thought out and tailored to me and there was so much magic. The guitarist had learned Death Cab  just for us and he filled our evening with a variety of songs that just made me melt. There was food and photos and our families just meshed without my help at all and everything was perfect.

I was so nervous it wouldnt have the magic I imagined or that I would feel uncomfortable telling everyone because of the attention but the truth is, Jeff knows me better than I know myself most days and he knew how to make it the most perfect thing to ever happen. And really, I feel so blessed to be planning eternity with someone so perfect for me. 

So I guess I should add that I said yes. I am gonna be a wife. And I am probably gonna cry a lot then too because I didnt know real life could involve a love like this. 

Six Hundred and My World Has Changed

Look how it all started.

I was so young, nieve, and I just wanted to be something more. Although I had absolutely no idea who I was. I was impressionable, lost and yearning. I wanted to change, so badly. But I was short sighted, even shorter tempered and couldnt possibly imagine the future that is my life now.

For awhile I used dinosaur facts to express myself, this was the beginning of that. I wanted to be different. I wanted to stand out. For someone to notice me and to see something because I couldnt see what I wanted to. I couldnt see that that someone was there all along.

I wanted love. More than anything. So I began trying to understand relationships. This was one of my better breakthroughs. Although Veronica Mars inspired the follow up post that also reminded me of what an idiot love makes me. But then there were the days when I longed for what I had before, even if it wasnt anything great, in those moments it seemed like the best thing so I often felt like JD in Scrubs.

And then I hated love. It felt tarnished and unlasting. It began something I didnt want to feel because I became another child of divorce, and I thought it was going to destroy my world.  And one day each year I let myself feel that pain and it is painful.I wondered if I would end up happy. If I would always just date the wrong people. And I pretended I didnt care that I was alone, but I was lying. And one night I realized I just hadnt found the right person at the right time. And then eventually I became less jaded.

Sometimes I was philosophical, I looked at reality and questioned it. And other days I knew that reality was a creation of both our past and our present with future minglings entwined. But most days were like this.

Amidst all of this I moved to Australia, and my house flooded. And eventually I left Australia and went home.

And now it is now. Everything has changed. This is my life. I have what I always wanted most. I have that love that I dreamed of and wrote of so often. I am still insecure and worry about my body image and feeling beautiful and about job security and if I am enough. I still stress and cry and feel pain. But I no longer feel it alone. I have someone that loves me entirely for me and because of that I think the next 600 will be full of a lot less jading and substantially less posts of ex drama.

XXXXXXX

I understand why Scott thought those represented kisses under the phone number, Why would you assume it represented seven evil exes? You probably wouldnt.

An ex and I chatted the other night. I am one of those people that stays friends with exes until they are married. Then it is like they have died. Or become zombies, something to avoid. But as we chatted I had the fleeting thought that I may be done racking up exes. I mean there is no ring but I am mostly positively sure that I am with the love of my life and that means that I can stop the whole exing game.

So in commemoration I have decided to write about seven of my worst relationships. Now this isnt to say I dated awful people. This is to say we were awful together. And looking back I am retarded. But it also makes me laugh. I am such an idiot.So let the journey begin. In no order at all.

X. This boy and I had little in common besides our entire class schedule. So it made sense to study together. This lead to a month or two of constant being together and many dinners with his family and me losing a dozens bets on exams. We were dating and loving it except I wouldnt admit we were dating because he was too cocky and half the time I couldnt decide if we liked each other or if we just liked the convenience. Then one day after we had all our classes together he texted me that he still loved his ex. Fail. Mostly because we still had a month or two of classes together. Note, we are still friends and he is as arrogant as always. What a champ.

X. Junior year. I was nailing wanting to be a doctor and at a party to celebrate the new season of Scrubs I met a boy. We became friends and he wanted to date. Oddly enough he knew X above and one time I ditched him for X above and he got mad because he had told everyone we were dating, except for me. I was utterly lost. Over the next year or two we hung out and sorta dated but he never would say anything mean. I hated it! It was like every time we hung out I just wanted him to punch me in the face. I couldnt handle how incredibly nice and genuine he was. So it couldnt work. I spent all out time together trying to convince him to be mean. He has a wife now so he may be dead. I wouldnt even know.

X. Somehow post X listed first I met another boy. And we dated and he was so hot and cold. Seventy Eight percent of the time I didnt know if he liked me. He just constantly kept me hanging. Then I moved to Canada for a summer. We talked and were to date when I returned. I was smitten. Until I got back and realized he was hooking up with my best friends friend. Awkward for him when he met my best friend at the other girls apartment and the next day came to mine and saw her again. Needless to say I opted out, he dated the other girl. They broke up. He called me and we starting spending too much time together. Somehow I got out of this. I dont know how. But randomly he used to always call me to either try and get back together or to talk about how he missed the other girl, who I was now friends with... When I moved to Australia he told me he wanted to ask me to not go. He missed me. I dont know how, we never talked and he treated me like crap. Two months later he was engaged. Dead.

X. Interject aussie relationship. I was flooded and homeless. Two uni boys let me in. Fast forward six months and one of these men was my best friend. We spent every day together doing whatever. So eventually I was like uh we are kinda dating hey. So we dated. And fell in love. And he had no qualities I wanted. He preferred drinking to spending time with me. He didnt want marriage or kids, he wanted instant gratification. But after 8 months of every day together all I saw was that I couldnt live without him. I was so wrong. He didnt ever show interest in my interests. Religion meant nothing. And he never wanted anyone to know we were dating. Welcome to brutal breakup and arguing because I wasnt a moraless girl. Hello, I had the same standards from homeless day one. We were so incredible wrong for each other. I was lonely and an idiot. I wish I could go back and punch idiot lonely aussie Lauren.

X. Aussie ex again. This one is hilarious to me. I was working in a rural hospital with no entertainment. Enter hot Orthopaedic surgeon that came across as being arrogant and misinformed. We first met at a presentation you did. I thought you screwed up most of the orthopaedic tests and was dying as I knew them. Somehow two weeks later some bantering and usual friendly conversation had occurred and you started asking around about me. A week later we were dating. Intensely. Who cares that you were Muslim and I was Mormon? It worked. We were less flirty at the hospital to keep it kosher. But as I asked another surgeon a question one day and he made implications about you and I, I nearly died. Eventually I moved back to the city after celebrating your birthday. One week later you sent me a text saying it was too hard. Hello. Thanks for not trying. Idiot. I learned a lot about Islam though and learned that he wasnt trying to learn about my religion at all. All talk no walk. Try not to kill anyone on the table dear. 

X. Sophmore year. One of the  most disastrous years of my life. And somehow I met a boy. But I told him not to love me because I would just go back to Canada for the summer and I had a boy on a mission that I was fond of. He didnt listen. We fell in love. For 10 or 11 months we were the worst couple. We argued about every single thing you can imagine. And when we would argue in the car I would play a recorder as loud as possible. We were so in love and brought out the worst in each other. It was constant tearing apart and wanting to throw things. I dont even know why. I think because I was you. I didnt understand love or anything really. He was married not long after we broke up and never again did we speak. Although I did have his sister chop my hair once after that.

X. And the cake arrives. Prior to now this was the most real I think I ever had felt about someone. And it made no sense. When we dated he treated me like crap. When we didnt date he treated me almost like a princess. He would let me cry. He would ask the questions no one would ask. He knew everything that no one else would ever know. And I loved him. But he didnt ever want me to love him. And he wasnt sure he could love me the way I needed to be loved. He wanted to play the card of the douche that didnt care even when I knew otherwise. he couldnt be everything I wanted him to be. But I somehow loved him more than I knew possible. It has been two and a half years since I said goodbye to him and flew across the world and spent months wondering how we would end up together. And somehow with the time and distance and looking back we laugh about how he was such a tool to me. He is one of the most influential people in my life and I think we will never see each other again and it wont matter. We were everything the other person needed but we would be the worst together. We were the worst together. We are our best when we are completely not dating. He was an awful boyfriend. 

At this moment I so badly wish I could put these seven men in a room and hear their thoughts about our relationship. I picture it being a disaster. But one I wouldnt be able to take my eyes off of. My exes arent really evil. They just were so entirely wrong for me and I never saw it until after, way after. I dont even know how I managed to find someone that can look past all of this crazy and love me.

Cause You Gave Me The Best Mixtape I Have

Warning. This may be sappy. Vomit now.

I dont even know who I am. There are moments when I feel so in love it freaks me out and I just want someone to punch me in the face.I was given a mix cd many years ago. I listened to it as I do and that was that. Somehow over the years it keeps coming back. For example, a year ago I woke up in a rural Australian town with a song stuck in my head. And by song I mean two lines. I had no idea how this happened or what it was but I was obsessed with it all day til I found out it was All At Once by Valencia. I then had to sort out how I knew it and why it was so familiarly vague. Eventually, I sorted out that it was from this mix cd from many years back.

Then it was wedding weekend and I found myself searching for this particular cd. Probably because it is labelled "Will You" and the first song is entitled Marry Me. So I spent the weekend with this album on repeat and I dont know if that did it, or if it was because of the wedding or if it was just me. But it feels like we were meant to be from the beginning I just couldn't see it. I wonder if you knew. I like to think we are together because of me. Because on the first day of this year I decided we were going to be and then proceeded to ask you out and text you while you were away til you realized it. So I like to think it was me that realized it but I dont think it was. It just took me awhile to see what you saw all along.

You gave me the best Mixtape I have, and even all the sad songs ain't so sad.

I am pretty sure we couldnt be more perfect for each other. You make me mental some days. And I need that. I cant handle everything being too perfect or sappy. I need the disagreeing about irrelevant things and the sarcasm. I am so in love I dont know what has happened to who I knew I was. I have become someone I never understood and for once I think it might be the right thing.

I Walked Down the Aisle

It didn't hit til the morning of. This was quite likely going to be the only time I would ever walk down an aisle. I realized I had better get it right. I was worried I would somehow lose both rings as I was responsible for both until moments before. Or that I would trip or do something embarrassing. Nothing like that happened and I am pretty sure I nailed the day. Okay, I know I did. But I cant help to be a little sad I wont be the one walking down the aisle with everyone smiling and crying and watching. But I regress.

The day was beautiful. Jenn was the most beautiful bride you could ever imagine. And it wasnt because of the makeup or dress. I have never seen her glow in that way before. She looked elated. The ceremony was short and simple full of love and a few laughs, I better remember to teach her the difference between right and left. And I assume the photos look great because the backdrop was stunning but I really dont know. I imagine there will be several with my hair flying everywhere as the wind was insane but those can be deleted forever I am sure.

All that really matters is that the day went off without any drama that I know of, and the two lovers are literally in the honeymoon phase being the happiest people on earth. They met at the pool they worked at so on our way to photos we stopped there and I took this. (There would be more photos but I focused on keeping the dress from dragging in the dirt and dissipating any potential problems so I took no photos except for this). So here it is. It is okay to drool a little or be obsessed with how pretty she is.

Congratulations JP, and thank you for choosing me to be  part of this day. I love you.

I've Got, I've Got To Get This All Off My Chest

This song will forever describe me and every situation of my life.

I was going to post all of the lyrics like I obsessively do but I am not going to because I have other words to say and if I post a million lyrics and all of my words even I wont be able to handle reading this. Yes I am the one reader of my own blog. I accept that.

I literally get chest pains frequently. Worsened by anxiety. Like yesterday. Some days are hard. They are hard for everyone. But lately I am struggling to sort it all out. I thought I knew everything I wanted. Now I feel conflicted. I used to know  what love is and now I question if I was wrong. What if everything I dreamed of really was just a dream? What if this life I created in my head when I compromised and came back isnt real? What if I am about to self destruct?

Let me paint this by number, with the simplicity that even a child wont understand because it wont be simple at all. If I was someone that could bluntly write every word then I wouldnt be me. I feel like I am wandering through that bog from the Princess Bride. Being swallowed up and knowing it but not able to save myself. It is like I am allowing my life to take control of me but not knowing how to change that. I want to write and say it feels like unrequited love but that would be oh so dramatic and probably significantly incorrect. But that is almost how I imagine it all. Life in my world runs on a schedule. It has to be scheduled or it may be forgotten. I am the most organized scattered person I know. Some days it amazes me that I have accomplished anything and the days I accomplish nothing leave me frustrated beyond belief. So when I cant control so much I want to throw things, literally. Sometimes it results in punches. The logic that is me screams to be released and finds such frustration when it isnt realized. Time patterns and plans make sense to me. I dont understand waiting and patience. I dont feel the need to let the stars align. I want action. I want the movie not the previews. I just want to scream and make the world run on my time but reality says that would push everything I want away. So instead I sit here trying to get it all off my chest.

I’m so sick of living my life in suspense.

I'm focused on getting my life rearranged,

and you're *** damn right my life has changed.

I'm Just a Dog-Earred Page You Turn Back To

As we sat at the table and questions flowed so much poured through my mind. The questions were easy, I knew the answers. Only one was a stumbling block and they just moved on from it and didnt ask questions as would be proper when realizing the taboo subject of a non present parent comes up. Yet my mind was somewhere else completely. I couldnt help but think of how many other family things I had been to with you. In nearly a decade there have been a fair few. And I wondered if I was the only one that realized that. That was thinking of how long I have been around and how I continually appeared but in a non-existent role. I wondered if they knew this time it was real. I wasnt just that girl next door that actually lived ages away. That I was the one that would be at every family event for forever now. I suppose I still dont know my place. I get nervous I will say the wrong thing or not fit in in the world I so desperately want to be a part of.  So when it was like a dogs ears perking up when I realized what song was being thrown back to me as I drove last night I wondered if this was me. Was I just that person you turn back to because I have always been a marked page or am I really the only one that will matter forever now?

It didnt help when I dreamt about marriage after that. I have never been that girl to fantasize about a wedding or getting married. I knew one day it would happen but that was that. There was no other real thought process. But last night instead of dreaming of being murdered I dream that we had decided to get married and to just go for it spur of the moment and I awoke realizing I have changed more than I ever would care to admit. It feels like my whole world is hanging in the balance right now.

Stagnant Waters

It feels like the whole world is changing around me and yet my world, the small realm of me, is staying so exactly the same. And it is so painfully frustrating. I constantly feel surrounded by complaints of the exact things I wish I had. Here I am living the life I lived when I was 17. I could walk these halls with my eyes shut. I can book clinics and answer the phone in my sleep. I could be dead and still be able to make charts. It is a suffocating feeling especially when I realize that this is my best option at the moment. There isnt anything else I can find that pays as well as this mediocre wage without my certification being approved. I just want my life back. I never realized how much I was sacrificing by coming home. If I knew I might not have been able to do it. It was hard enough as it was. I just miss it so much that it literally hurts. I miss my freedom. Reading on the train. And Southbank. I loved that place. And my friends. Skyping and texts just dont cut it. And I could be doing what I love if I had stayed, I could be a physio making a difference instead of making charts.  I had such a great life there. And I so badly want to say I dont mind having given it all up because I knew I wouldnt find real love there. But my insecurity is blinding. I cant help but wonder if you love me. And if things dont end up working out I know I will feel angry that I gave up so much to come back to a place that had so little. I just want to feel like my life is going somewhere beyond watching everyone else's lives progress.I just want a small glimmer of something to appear to remind me that this will be worth it. The murkiness of the stagnant waters I am in is only clouding everything more. I just want to get out to open waters full of ebbs and flows.

Gangsters and Blizzards

Enter. A little black man appearing to be 7 years of age wearing a Lakers flatbrim snap-back along with a diamond stud.

I dont know how you are supposed to react when you see that your previous foster brother who is now three years of age looks like a gangster. Thug life forever.

I couldnt believe how tall him and his sister are. I remember holding them as babies, they have been around our home a lot over the past five years, and now they are huge. She is up to my chest now at 5 years of age, I mean I am pretty average in size but having a 5 year old more than half my height.. it's a little disheartening.

And that was only the beginning. The storm began the next day and being snowed in seemed logical. The tang came out and snowcones were made from the ever drifting snow. Only to be followed by a 645 true wake up of pushing a car out of the gridlock of snow.

I forgot so much when I left. Not once did my snow dreams involve shoveling over and over again or pushing cars or being blinded by the whipping snow while running for a door. Nor they did involve my little babies turning into thugs. Life really has a way of reminding me what is real. And reality is that even blizzards dont mean actual days off in this land. And this land is my land. *chestpound* Peace.

Maybe Fairytales Do Exist

I watched the movies. I knew what love looked like. Disney showed me. I knew that princesses found princes and sometimes not princesses did. I knew that there was wooing and romance and magic. That it was a true fairytale. And then I grew up and realized that life wasnt like a movie. Unless you count the Truman Show. My life is the Truman Show. Trust me.

So many days ago happened. It was a day I seldom give any thought. Besides that Purdys has chocolate hearts. They are delicious. So I knew it was coming and this time it was different. We had talked about it before we were even officially us. And I had suggested going for milkshakes at a drive-in. I am really classy. He suggested what we did.

So it arrived. I wore a new little black dress and tried to appear nicer than my usual scruffy self, but lets get it straight, I didnt go as far as brushing my hair, that would have been way overdoing it. So we left work early and began our drive to the mountains. Something about going into the mountains is just magical. They exude beauty and a sense of escape. And as we neared the gorgeous Fairmont Hotel I realized it was a dream. The hotel is like a castle and possibly grander than anything else I know because its close enough to home that it is real but at the same time it is remarkable and like a fairytale. Maybe it added to it that he had bought me a box of Purdys chocolates and we were in an escalade. I know it sounds lame but it was just so over the top yet real.

We spend the afternoon at the spa, a spa with 3 pools containing waterfalls of different temperatures, a pool of mineral water and a hot tub outside overlooking the mountains. This was interrupted only by a massage and then the hot tubbing continued. It just wasnt like the real world, or my life. It was classy and fancy. It was literally something out of the movies. We had our own robes and were treated like royalty.

We finished up and went to a lovely steak house with another couple and by the time we were ready to head back to the city I was exhausted. I just curled up in the car and he let me sleep as we drove through the mountains home. And eventually we were outside the house. I gave him his TMNT cufflinks and was handed a bag that nearly made me cry. It was Tiffanys. I didnt even want to open it. And in that moment I knew that I would never find anyone that could know me better or make me happier.

I think maybe all of the hype about love in movies might be real. I hated it all before because I didnt understand it and I had never felt it this way before. But now I think I may have just landed in my own fairtytale and it is making me so girly and insecure and happy that I cant even explain it. I may be the luckiest girl alive.

Hundreds of days to a conclusion I knew from the start.

Nearly a year and a half. Filled with letters I would never send. Boys I would just compare to you. Moving away thinking it would resolve everything. And yet here I am. Almost where I was before, except in such a different place. I have changed in most ways. I met you and was so insecure and lost and just trying to find something to grasp onto to find an identity. And now I know exactly what I want for a future, I have direction, I understand my own religion better and I have a greater appreciation for life. I also learned what it means to truly be there for someone, and have someone there for me even in the most inopportune times. I thought that first time we talked I knew, and now I know I was so wrong then. You invade my dreams, and my workplace and my mind. And I cant help but fall for you a little more everyday. I spent that year and a half telling myself to get over you, and that I was over you, and that I would be over you for good. I was wrong. I currently cant imagine being over you, ever. I cant help but to think if there was not that one difference that things would be so different right now. You say the right person comes at the right time. I think i disagree. Love is so inopportune. Perhaps I do love you. Regardless, I am a better person for knowing you, and I will always be grateful for that.

ps too bad you dont read my blog.