The Epitome of First World Problems

Weddings are stressful. Anyone who has gotten married or is getting married knows this. And it’s not your traditional kind of stress. It’s a stress I’ve never experienced before. Your emotions are on overdrive and the stupid shit… it just starts to eat away at you until you just collapse into a puddle of tears and idiocy.

Sure there have been plenty of things to stress about. Preparations, venue, planning, what band to use who needs to do this who needs to that etc etc etc. There’s a lot of moving parts and getting all the stars to align is darn near impossible. And let’s not even talk about all the vendors out there ready and willing to pray on those ever fragile emotions. But when everything finally seems to come together into one state of Zen, something blows up in your face. I’ll say it again, weddings are stressful.

Without diving into all the gory details, there’s been wrong contract dates, a messed up wedding band, getting suckered into a nearly free honeymoon package that is a complete and utter scam, a million stupid other things getting screwed up, and lots and lots of drama. And I thought I could have a drama free day. HA HA HA. 

You end up in the place I'm currently in... The Epitome of First World Problems...

But in all that craziness you start to worry about all the little details and the important things seem to be left in the dust.

So as I sit here in a heaping puddle of tears, sixteen days out from my wedding, I’m reclaiming the important parts. Because at the end of the day, the important thing is I’m getting to marry the love of my life and we’re getting to spend the rest of our lives together. And that’s really the only thing that matters. The rest is just extra bullshit that might be wonderful to have, but in reality I don’t need. I have everything that is necessary to make this day be happy, the man I’m marrying.

So here’s a big middle finger to all the stress, scams, and stupid shit. I’m over you. I’m going to enjoy the next sixteen days, marry the man of my dreams and party my ass off with my family and friends. And if I trip on my dress and fall face first into my cake, well shit happens, at least the cake will taste good.

Tearing Things Down

Wow, so it’s been a while since I’ve blogged here. Sorry about that! Life kind of got in the way. In the last four or so months, I’ve sold two condos, bought a house, moved, continued on with wedding plans (a little over a month to go), attended the funeral of my 94 year old grandfather (as hard as death is I have comfort in knowing he lived a long and very full life.), and changed jobs. To say I’ve been a bit busy is an extreme understatement. There’s been good, bad and ugly over the last few months, but I look forward to all the good coming in the remainder of the year.

Sadly, the only thing I haven’t been doing a lot of is writing, which is evident in the cobwebs growing around this blog. It’s been a rough road and my schedule and stress level have made writing downright painful over the last six months or so. But in taking a new job as a teardown and cost engineer, I’ve learned some things about my writing. In my new role at work, we take aircraft parts and pull them apart to their base components. We study each piece, try to uncover all the processes that were involved in making it, and then try to understand how it is connected to the other pieces in order to create a much larger functioning part.

And in doing a few of these teardowns, I’ve realized I should really be doing the same with my writing. Take it apart to the bare bones, understand my characters, their motivations, what makes them tick, and how their stories and actions work together to create a much larger cohesive story. There’s a lot of moving parts to a manuscript and until you understand each of them, you can’t fully connect with your writing, your plot, your setting, or your characters.

So my next step is to spend some time really digging into my current WIP; getting to know all the elements so I can build an even better overall story. In doing so, I hope that I can dive head first into my current and future projects with a renewed sense of excite. I’ve got a lot of excitement headed my way and I hope to carry that into my writing in the future.

Thanks to all who have stuck with me through the rollercoaster over these last few months. I hope to share some quite a bit of happiness throughout the rest of the year. Keep doing your thing and I’ll be right there with you.