And I nearly lost it. Seriously, I’m totally going to be the overly emotional dad that’s going to bust out in tears every two seconds like Soun Tendo from Ranma 1/2 whenever the smallest milestone or any realization of first-time father comes to pass.
I thought I got through the first stage of emotions that flooded through upon the realization that mythical wife was pregnant, but hearing the heartbeat for the first time, and the tech’s explanation that it was in fact, the baby’s heartbeat, and tear ducts welled up in an instant, despite the fact that I was able to keep them somewhat in check.
It’s like all the home pregnancy tests in the world confirmed what we already suspected, and it would be the lock of the century to bet on pregnant going to the doctor’s for the official confirmation. But then hearing the heartbeat for the very first time was still a crashing confirmation of just how real it all is, and that in a matter of months, I’m going to have my very own kid.
I’m going to take a wild guess and imagine that there is going to be a lot more of where this came from over the next few months.
This is one of those times where I’m actually glad that my site is still offline. And even if it were online, this isn’t something that I would post immediately, and would keep this one a draft until the coast is clear. Normally that’s kind of against the general idea of brogging, but there are special circumstances and exceptions in which I am more than willing to bend the rules with.
But if the post’s image isn’t the biggest hint in the world, let’s just go ahead and put it out in text:
My wife and I are going to have a baby.
Still feels a little weird and a bit amazing to having typed those words out in front of me, but there it is. My wife is pregnant; I’ve never been keen on the idea of couples who use the royal “we” when referring to announcing a pregnancy, because let’s be real here, the woman is the only one who has to deal with all the physical burden of the whole process, so it’s her pregnancy, while I am the schlub who will do anything and everything I can for her while going through it.
She’s going to be a mom, and I’m going to be a dad. An 엄마 and an 아빠. Together, our brand-new family is going to be getting just a little bit bigger.
God damn, that didn’t take long at all. Kids were never off the table between the two of us, and I always imagined that I would have at least one kid in my lifetime, but damn I didn’t realize we’d succeed at getting this plan off the ground barely two months after the wedding. Sure, we knew what could happen once the safety net was removed, but I guess both of us didn’t realize that we’d be this expedient at getting the project launched.
I mean, I love efficiency as much as the next control freak, but damn.
Going into the wedding, there were two pictures that I had pictured in my head that I was determined to make happen during the reception. I didn’t tell anyone about them, I didn’t try to organize and plan a specific point during the reception when they were going to occur, but I kept the idea in my head, and planned on making them reality when it was time for the reception.
Despite how harmonious everything ultimately ended up during the wedding weekend, the reality is that I had three pretty defined groups, representing for lack of a better term, my side of the guest list. Family, my friends, and then my groomsmen. This isn’t to say that my groomsmen are not my friends, frankly as far as I’m concerned, they’re just a little bit more, and more like additional family than they are just friends. However, that being said, it was with my two groups of friends in which I had two particular photos that I wanted to take during the reception.
I’m fortunate that I was able to make them occur, and they were among the photographs that I was looking forward to seeing the most after the wedding. The significance of these particularly desired shots was simply the fact that among all the players involved in these shots, I had reached the point where I had known all of them for (nearly) twenty years; two-zero.
I’m doubtful that I am I going to ever really be the guy on social media with thousands of followers and a number next to “friends” that is anything over like 200. I’m far too guarded, paranoid and too much of a shut-in to just willy-nilly friend every single person in site, not to say that those who do are any lesser than I am; it’s just not me.
But the people in my life that I do call friends, these are typically the people that I will do so, for a span of time that’s more accurately compared to severe jail sentences than quick and meaningless short relationships. Friendships with me are always more likely to be long-haul endeavors than just relationships out of conveniences, which isn’t to say that I’ve had my fair share of those, not that there’s anything wrong with those either.
Honestly, there’s not nearly as much to say about the honeymoon as there was the wedding. Frankly, much of this was split into two posts mostly because of my OCD of wanting to make sure a wedding photo was with the wedding post, and so that some picture from the honeymoon can also get displayed independently, therefore necessitating its own post. Still, not to say that I can’t spout off about a honeymoon, but in the interest of transparency, this is the true impetus of this post coming to fruition.
Frankly, we’re just happy to have done a honeymoon, especially immediately after the wedding. We’ve seen it happen to enough couples, where a honeymoon is planned anywhere from months to an entire year after the wedding to actually happen, and in some cases not even happen at all. Yeah no, no disrespect to those who embark on similar paths, but the both of us most definitely wanted to have an actual honeymoon, where we could actually relax and take a well-earned break from the life of planning a wedding on top of our normal working lives.
In a nutshell, we went to Disney World for a few days, stayed at the Polynesian resort, and then transitioned onto a Disney cruise for the next week, where we sailed to Mexico for a few days, hit Disney’s private island Castaway Cay for a day, and then came back home. The wife drove most of the itinerary, since she’s at least 200x more into Disney than I am, but I’m more than happy to go along for the ride, as long as the vast majority of my trip could be spent relaxing, eating like a pig, and generally having very little commitments at all.
Overall, my missions could very well be considered accomplished. Maybe a little too much, because I still have no earthly idea what I’m doing with my life whenever I have free time back home. I just watched Chinese Super Ninjas for the 80th time in my life last night, because I couldn’t triangulate on one better thing to do with two free hours than that.
Let this be the first time I put in writing that I am now an officially married man, and this is the first time that I’ve had the time to sit down and write since both the wedding and the honeymoon. After planning for both of these things for the better part of the last year, and then actually doing both things, I have to say that it feels kind of like having been on a train for a while and then having to adjust to the speed of walking all over again. Literally, I’ve spent parts of the last two days sitting there in a dazed stupor, not having any clue of what to do next with, life in general.
There are certainly things that should get done and need to get done, but I’m having a hard time bringing myself to make the first step in any direction to actually get started on doing anything really just yet. It’ll all fix itself pretty quickly as daily life and routine begin to settle back down, but for the time being, it’s definitely taking some adjustment on getting back to normal life after finishing up a journey with some finishes in extreme rhythms.
As for the wedding, I have to say that I think the wife and I put on an excellent weekend for our celebration of union. Trying to be as objective as I can for my own event, but I really genuinely believe that just about everything went so well and smooth, and I really couldn’t have asked for anything else,* as far as how the entire weekend went, from the arrival of friends and family, the rehearsal party to the wedding itself.
*except maybe some actual leftovers from our catering, which was completely obliterated by everyone, regardless of a few no-shows, resulting in nothing left for wifey and I after the wedding, but I guess that’s just another sign of success that we picked a good caterer who put out some irresistible food
I think it started with the location, and getting hitched in downtown Decatur made for a fantastic location for guests to stay where they were right next door to the venue, in an area where there were tons of restaurants and bars to eat and hang at, and a rarity in the Metro Atlanta area, somewhere that was MARTA accessible, meaning people could easily hop aboard the train and actually do tourist things. Plus, the hotel was brand-spanking new, and the staff was outstanding beyond belief, and there’s little reason to believe the weekend wouldn’t have been as great as it was without them themselves.
Throughout the weekend, fewer things made me happier than seeing friends and family decisively doing their own things, and going out to eat or to the aquarium or the World of Coke, and making the most of their free time. I took great pleasure and enjoyment in seeing people having a good time in Decatur and Atlanta, and not feeling like they were just humoring us, and like they actually got some time for themselves instead of feeling like they were just here for us.
If I can pull the curtain back a little bit, whenever I sit down and write, there’s no guarantee that the most recent thing I’m writing is actually the most recent thing that’s actually happening. Especially these days, I often times come across things or thoughts that spark the want to write, but I just simply don’t have the time to write, because I’m always busy at work, and by the time I get home, I’m either too busy to write or too fried to write.
In times like those, what typically happens is that I have a cloud-based document where I jot down the date and the general theme of what was going to be written, and if there’s any links that I want to refer to, that too. And when I have the time and the motivation to do some writing, those are the things that I try to tackle first. Typically, I don’t like the queue to grow too big, because then it gives me anxiety and a feeling of being worthless as someone who likes to write. But there are exceptions to the queue, where I start writing about something in the true present, because usually there’s some degree of time sensitivity to where it’s not something that I can go back and write about retroactively. At the time I’m writing this, there are three posts queued up that I still want to write about when I get the time.
Right now, is one of those moments. Because the last few days, I’ve been coming to the realization that a lot of the things I’m doing, are the last time I’m doing them as a single guy. Yes, melodramatic me is actually writing about the slow farewell to single, unattached life, because I’m two days from entering the wedded bliss of holy matrimony, and getting married. What started out as mythical gf became mythical fiancé, and now I’m about to have a mythical wifey, and I’m actually going to be somebody’s husband. Sucks to be them!
But anyway, it’s a lot of little things that I’m doing that I’m realizing are the last times I’m doing them as a single person. All throughout the week, I’ve had my final chest and tris day as a single guy. My last time running on the treadmill as a single guy. Today was my last bis-shoulders-hamstrings day. As the weekend progresses, I’ll have my last meals and drinks as a single person, and then when I’m at the altar, likely watching down at mythical fiancé coming down the aisle, probably looking radiant and beautiful, I’ll be ticking down my last minutes and seconds as a single person.
Marriage is one of those things that I always imagined would be in my future. Even though jaded people like to claim that it’s an archaic institution or something that doesn’t really mean much these days, the eternal romantic in me always saw it as something that I figured I’d want to attain in my life. I’ve watched couples that I’ve always thought were great, mothers and fathers of children, and even my own parents dissolve and divorce which I’d be lying didn’t give me concerns for pursuing it myself, but it just seems like one of those things that always had a place in my life, personally.
And fortunately, I’ve had an accommodating partner throughout this journey towards marriage, and the once-mythical gf has stuck with me throughout the last four years, and kind of made it something of a no-brainer that we just might work out in the long haul. I’m lucky to have a girl in my life that loves and accepts me, is supportive of my pursuits, and encourages me to be the best person that I can be, and I’m pretty stoked and excited to go through the awkward transition of calling her “my girl-I mean fiancée,” and eventually, my wife.
It’s funny because despite the fact that it took four years to get to this point, this is something that has been on my mind for a way lot longer. But I didn’t want to be one of those people who were just giddy to be in a relationship, and rush straight into marriage, without really knowing their better halves, and despite the fact that I was wondering if this could go in this direction, I always erred on the side of steady, to let things grow, feel things out, and really be more and more sure of, well everything.
