Thoughts about marriage and death

I suppose a month is quite a while to have gone without posting. Life has been...busy. I've become disgustingly obsessed with time: constantly running through my checklists, figuring out how many hours I've been running around and how many minutes I had free each day, trying to decide what I can skip so I can have a break, being angry at everyone who doesn't understand. Lately it has been getting better, though, and spring break is starting this week.

Wedding planning is moving along. On our end, it has been incredibly slow but still moving. My parents have been wonderful in planning, making calls, coming up with and following through on ideas. If not for them, this wedding would probably not be ready to happen in August. It has been great learning how to plan for marriage, way more important than wedding. Talking to friends and family, meeting with our pastor, talking to each other, learning about conflict and communication and identity and expectations. What a crazy, huge, amazing adventure marriage is! I can't say that it seems any less scary and challenging as it gets closer, but it definitely seems more beautiful.

This past weekend we drove to Portland for Grandma Dorothy's funeral. A full, emotional couple of days. It was incredible to be with family (maybe 25 or so family members were there--more than I can remember ever being with at once) and to support and love each other in a way only we could understand. That connection in that way is something I've never experienced before. I realized how similar and yet how different our memories of Dorothy are, and we deeply enjoyed sharing those with each other.

It's odd to realize how out of control we are. We can't do anything about getting older. My own parents are going to keep getting older and will eventually die. My entire family is going to die. Isaac and I are going to get old (hopefully) and die. We are silly to work so hard to make perfect little brief lives for ourselves, when there is nothing we can do about dying.