Fancy Titles

So, I'm still getting used to being engaged. The I thought about the fact that Jesse is now my fiancée and that I too am a fiancée. This means that I currently have an ACCENT over a title used to describe me. I have never had an accent over anything that referred to me and so this fact makes me happy.

I also discovered that there are in fact TWO words that sound alike (at least I think they do, but I may be dumb about this):

Fiancée - engaged woman

and

Fiancé - engaged man

How curious! Am I the only one who didn't know this?

I would also like to inform anyone reading that today I am in a supremely strange mood which I attribute to lack of sleep and end of the week jitters. Don't ask what the jitters are about though because I won't be able to answer you.

Okay, and now to SWITCH gears a bit to something more serious:

It scares me to death that things might happen in my relationship, in my forthcoming marriage (!), that I won't be able to handle. It scares me to think that two people can just become so distant and estranged and wonder how they ever ended up like that in the first place. Relationships can morph when you're not looking, I have found this out in the past. Because I am pretty sure most people don't get married thinking "yeah, this'll probably end, but what the hell? why not give it a try!?" Most people, I think, believe that they will make it. That they will be different and not part of the 40-50% of marriages that now end in divorce.

OH my gosh!! I just realized that there may be ONE other time that you get to have an accent on a title associated with you - divorcé - is this a real word? Perhaps I made it up...

Okay, anyway, so it just scares me that things change so much. and in a negative way in particular. people get unhappy and the over all those days and weeks and months, things happen and bitterness grows and the past gets tangled up and it's hard to know how to untangle it. and something that once seemed like a cute habit now drives you crazy and small things become big ugly problems that take up so much space that there's no room to live. and i guess the commitment might keep things going on the surface, but in reality the relationship may be dead. or at least really cold and distant.

this all worries me. already. i want to make sure that we can figure out ways of handling things in the future. even though we have no idea what that future will hold. what sorts of things might happen.

so i came up with an idea. first, jesse's idea is to go to pre-marriage (and i'm sure post-marriage) counseling. i'm up for this, and although i have never been to a counselor, i believe in them. so yes, this is a good idea. add it to the list.

but my contribution and idea is a book. i just thought of this today. a book that we would write in as notes to our future selves. we could put happy things, like good memories and silly times. but most importantly, we could write down the lessons we learned with each and every previous disagreement and misunderstanding or insightful conversation. Perhaps this is silly, but I envision having something to go to, to remind us of where we were of what we learned about each other in the past and then hopefully of some hope to get through the current difficulty.

i'm sure as life gets hectic the book will be left behind. but maybe we won't need it anymore. maybe we will just get in the habit of storing away those special moments and insights so that we can recall them whenever we need a little reminder of why we're in this at all.

one of my comm teacher in undergrad said the secret to a happy marriage is having low expectations. what do you think about this? i'm the eternal optimist, so i'm sure you can guess what i think...

okay, i guess that's all for now.

happy friday everyone.