I guess, I just didn’t realize how emotional this whole process might be.
Save for a few hiccups, it seemed that things were coming together and moving along. So it shocked me, it shocked us that in that florist shop at our church building, tears started rolling down my cheeks and I just could not continue the task at hand. We were supposed to be there choosing flowers for our wedding. I started to cry and we had to leave shortly.
Last night was spent, with me in your arms, weeping.
I didn’t know where the tears came from, except that they came in bursts and torrentially, in ebbs and flows, bewildering the both of us. Yet, it wasn’t completely unfamiliar- I knew the trip to the florist had triggered an emotion buried deep inside, and it was time to address it.
Wedding planning and preparing for marriage has been emotionally overwhelming. While I’ve been so thankful for the help that has come along our way, the stresses of many preparations and people to consider, of unhappy incidents at work, and the many other projects that crop up (interviews, my next book project etc) have also taken its toll. My parents, being moved by Cliff’s sincerity to serve the poor and humility, bought us a wonderful place to live in, charging us rent at half the price; a professional videographer who chanced upon my blog decided to shoot our pre-wedding video of our story for free; and another friend of a friend, once a stranger and blog-reader, has now become our groomsman, helping us make logistical nightmares a fuss-free possibility.
I have so much to be thankful for, really. Yet, there is something about wedding planning which truly brings out a different side of one. Some become absolutely overwhelmed, some morph into bridezillas. I, overwhelmed in similar and different ways, was reduced to tears.
I didn’t know it would cost so much. I didn’t realize so many people would be involved. I didn’t expect that just a month before the wedding, I would still be in need of people to fill important roles. Perhaps that naïve and idealistic part of me thought things would simply and organically come together. After all, hasn’t God always provided for us that way? I thought I would have no gown, but my father bought us a wedding package. Instead of one, they rented us three gowns, and another two more for shoots. I thought we would rent a room in a government flat. Instead, our parents bought us a condominium unit with extra rooms so we could fulfill our dreams of turning one room into a guest room for missionaries or someone in need. I thought I might have to ask my dad for help as I didn’t have a bridal car. Instead, a friend took the trouble to ask his girlfriend’s brother to lend us his pearly white BMW convertible just for an extra special oomph for the day. We have been incredibly blessed.
So perhaps, subconsiciously, a part of me had hoped that the flowers and décor, things which mattered a great deal to me, would burst into blossoms in a firework display of shimmering dust. A blog-reader in Australia emailed me and touched me by her offer to help hand-make some crafts to mail over for the wedding. Others brimmed with ideas. My hopes rose. But work, life and other things came by and people could no longer commit to the roles. I found myself at the florist, tired, disappointed, and overwhelmed by the reality that while I knew many people, I did not have many close relationships. The tears were of fatigue, but also of mourning the realization that perhaps I never sowed that much into the relationships around me. When you need you prepare for an event as large and personal as a wedding, the fruit that you bear in your day-to-day relationships over the years then becomes starkly apparent. I have many ideas offered to me for décor and flowers, many people offering helping hands to put up decorations, but really is needed, is someone with the time and commitment to say they will follow through till the end to make those ideas a reality. I have been moved by the people who have agreed to and offered to expend time and energy to help out a day before or on the day of the event- many are friends I have not seen for ages, some even just acquaintances. But here I am realizing that weeks have gone by without someone who can commit to designing and organizing the decorations for the day itself. I don’t need another idea, but someone who can step up to say they want to be… involved and see those ideas through. Because I don’t have the energy, nor the optimism to ask anymore. The past few weeks have just been a mad rush of work interspaced with wedding preparations and a sudden barrage of interviews from a TV station, a radio station and an online magazine about my experience with depression and the community projects I’ve been involved in. My close friends are doctors as busy as myself struggling to keep afloat. I need help, and don’t know who to ask.
The trip to the florist triggered the battery of emotions long hidden within: all this while I think I felt guilty for troubling my friends; I felt guilty that in spite of all the blessings that God had rained upon us, I still felt I was in lack; I felt guilty that perhaps I had not nurtured relationships that I should have. And underneath all that, were the complex undercurrents of feeling too guilty for buying something I felt should only be given to one out of appreciation and love, and never bought for oneself- flowers. It was a moment of defeat, a culmination of accumulated disappointment, and I felt I didn’t want to plan or spend or do anymore. After the decision that we made not to keep a cent of angpow (red packet money) that people would give us for the wedding, but to channel it all to raise funds for a Cambodian ministry through my third book, the financial sting of expenses became more real. That evening, as I lay my head next to yours and you very quietly whispered to me that you felt guilty and afraid for not being able to provide for me financially as much as you would have liked, I was moved to tears. You have always wanted the best for me, for me to be happy.
That night I wept. I wept my eyes out because I was tired of managing all this. I had come to the end of my human strength and felt too guilty to ask God for any more. I was hurt and overwhelmed by the unfortunate misunderstandings at work. I was stressed out by various demands at work, by the immense labour of shifting homes, by managing people. I realized that while my job involves “fixing” people on a day-to-day basis, I have had little time to invest in cultivating meaningful relationships with people. I questioned the meaning of what I have been doing, I wondered why I was still going on.
So I cried and wept. The whole day was a day of me feeling labile and emotional about everything. I was unbearable. I left church in a cab in a huff of tears. You held the door to stop me from leaving but I refused to let you follow me after an inconsequential thing you said which I ought not to have been offended by. After some time, my head came to its senses and I turned back to where we had been. But you had left in another cab back to my home because you thought that was where I would head to. I turned back, you turned back and we finally both found each other. Me, with my head in a puddle of tears because I had too much to say which I couldn’t and wouldn’t, and you, with your arms wide open to offer me grace and forgiveness because you know I am too difficult, too complicated to understand completely, at least not all at once. I didn’t want to hold your hand. I wanted to evaporate and disappear and not have to deal with this or go to work or talk to anybody else. But you held my hand. Even though I had not been reasonable. Even though I had hurt you. Even though my hands were wet with snot and unworthy to be held.
The night was spent in tears, of you saying sorry and me saying sorry. Me wanting you to leave because I was unbearable to be around, and you, instead of leaving me alone, suddenly carrying me in your arms and spinning me round and round like a little girl until I burst out in peals of laughter because I was so giddy and I had to ask you to stop. Me crying and you holding my head in your arms. Me not being able to stop crying and you telling me over and over, that you made the best choice in your life marrying me.
Me telling you I didn’t want to do this anymore. You saying you would pick up the pieces. Me saying I had so much work left to do. You saying I wasn’t allowed to work today and taking me out to Gardens by the Bay followed by breakfast and a heartwarming movie to watch at home snuggled next to you. Me telling you I’ve been so discouraged I don’t want to go to work tomorrow. You telling me we would pray, and that God would make it okay.
Me saying that I’m shit scared of getting married next month and I can’t believe I’m moving out and moving on to a new phase of life and making a covenant promise that lasts for eternity which publicly declares I will love no one but you and never leave you unless you commit adultery and never remarry until you die on me. You saying that you’re overjoyed and can’t wait.
Then I realized, with my wet face in your hands, that for all that had happened, what you said from the start when I didn’t believe you and didn’t want to love you then was true after all- that two, is better than one.