Well...James is coming home...really really soon...I still am not allowed to post exactly how soon, but those of you who are close to me know the details already anyway. I'm feeling really weird. I figure this is probably the one time in my life I will ever feel this way so I'd better try to get it all out on paper before I forget what it feels like.
First I'll talk about what I'm not feeling enough of: excitement. Of course I am excited, don't get me wrong...it's just that my feelings of excitement come and go and when they go it's because I am being smothered by other more powerful feelings.
What other feelings could I possibly have other than excitement? Well, I will tell you. For one, fear. Yes, I would say that is the overwhelming feeling I'm having at this point. I'm afraid that James and I won't connect the way we did when he left...that we've both changed too much since he's been gone...and that things are going to be weird between us. I'm afraid he'll have culture shock and will be too freaked out to just enjoy being home. I'm afraid that I have become an old maid, set in my ways, and I won't adjust well to having someone else to consider before every decision I make and someone interrupting my well established routine. Why isn't that couch cushion the way I left it this morning? Who cares, it's just a couch cushion right? But no, it's my couch cushion and I don't want it being moved unless I'm the one who moves it. See people, I'm clearly losing my mind here.
Anxiety. Yes, that one goes right along with the fear. But I'd say the fear is in my head and the anxiety is more of a physical emotion. I feel the anxiety with every part of my body and it makes me incapable of sleep, incapable of eating, incapable of digesting food properly when I do manage to consume something (probably TMI, but anyone who knows me knows that my anxiety goes straight to my bowels)...and I just have an overall sense of nervousness at all times. Sometimes this mixes with the excitement and I feel like I'm just going to burst with happiness and fear and everything else inside me, but then the anxiety takes over again and I nervously begin biting my nails or crunching on a saltine.
Worry. Again, these are all obviously related. But I'm just overcome by a sense of worry that the happy reunion that I've imagined for so long isn't going to be as wonderful as I've dreamed. Now that it's going to be a reality how can it possibly compare to what I've imagined? What if James and I are still getting used to each other again on our wedding day? That should be the happiest day of our lives but what if we're weird? I don't think that will be the case...but it's always in the back of my mind.
Disassociation. I'm not really sure that's the right word to use, so let me explain. So, I remember James, obviously. We had been dating nearly a year and a half when he left. I remember things we've done together, places gone together, and words we've shared between each other. But...when I think about all these things now...it feels more like I read about it all in a book and didn't really experience any of it myself. It's all so far away and the dreams of the things we'll do together in the future have all been in my head so it's almost as if everything about our relationship has been imagined. I know it's real, obviously, but there is just a kind of lack of belief that this is my real life...that soon I'm really going to go to Point Magu and pick up a man that I am in love with and who is in love with me. Does that person exist in real life?
I realize that I am a horrible fiance and person for having all of these feelings right before one of the happiest days of our lives...right before the day that we have both been waiting for for seven long months. But it is what it is. All I can hope is that tomorrow as soon as I see him everything negative will be washed away and I will be left with only the excitement...and hopefully some contentment too.
