Guests, Wedding blues, and Recovery

I woke up feeling good today. Bright, energetic, and optimistic.

This is exciting largely because the last few months have been a combination of periodic highs in a sea of drudging through a constant psychological low. The highs were more than worth it, of course. I was married on December fourteenth, and it was marvelous.

The wedding planning wasn’t what caused the stress- that was actually pretty low key. We married at the somewhat old-fashioned hour of 11am, and the ceremony was followed by brunch and champagne. The music was a chamber group of ladies from the Symphony called Women in Black, and they played christmas carols and classical music in the background. It was lovely, and the Bridegroom and I retired by 3pm to two days in a hotel for our honeymoon. The reason for the short time was due to my having two exams immediately before and after the weekend, and having an unusually long-term series of out of town guests to entertain. That was more the trial. I had envisioned a wee tiny family wedding. I had been planning my elopement for years, but the groom has a very large family-oriented family, and some sort of ceremony was important to him. So we planned for something small and easy, and it was astonishing how many people seemed to conspire to make it so much more than it needed to be. The day itself went by fairly smoothly, the only hiccup being needing to combat an enthusiastic relation bent on being the M.C. Every wedding has these minor social jousts, I’ve since heard.

The following four weeks of almost constant social events, dinners, and one hellish road trip beat me into a hollow shell of niceties, small talk, and nigh on constant drinking. Christmas and new years were a handy background. At any given moment, I likely wasn’t the only one starting in on the sauce by noon to get me through the day.
Every moment I had by myself or with my Husband was usually spent either over-sleeping, re-reading old familiar novels that wouldn’t tax my mental or emotional processes, and crying, crying, crying. I didn’t feel so much as unhappy, as just worn thin to the mental bone and having a good rant and weep usually left me pleasantly tired and a little emptier feeling. Bear in mind this was also taking place in the 3 week space between University semesters, over Christmas, and during what is commonly referred to as the honeymoon period.

Once all had left and gone, and the world returned to normal, we had already been back at school for two weeks. In the week and a half since, we’ve probably been sleeping close to 15 hours a day, watching movies, playing video games, working out, and have both gotten massively ill, as though it all finally caught up and landed once we were allowed to slow down enough. This is the first morning I’ve woken up feeling truly good in about two months. We listened to music, made waffles and bacon, and have been both sitting at our respective laptops at the dining room table, occasionally sharing glances and tidbits and reminding each other that we’re done! We’re here! We made it!

I feel like I’m back.