Mentally screwed

                                                                                                 
   Today has been a very emotional day for me.  I'm not quite sure why, nothing really happened to set it off.  I was exhausted as usual.  I didn't get home until after midnight.  I was late getting off work due to my patient having an out patients surgery.  Then I had to drive home during an Oklahoma monsoon during the busy Oklahoma City rush hour madness, then pick up my fourteen year old to take her to her "meet the teach night" (yyeeaaa).  Afterwards, I had to be to a meeting with the girls from my team to work on our upcoming events and do some planning followed by working on some paperwork we needed to get back to the publish "asap."  Only to have to push it off late due to getting stuck in yet another Oklahoma Monsoon while trying to pick up a quick dinner form the local chinese takeout, where my daughter and I ended up having a car picinic due to zero visibility on the roads.  Followed by making a late night run to grab school supplies and a new lap top to get back to my writing.  When I finally got home that night around 1230 a.m., I laid in bed unable to sleep.  I finally dozed off around 0130.  So when my dog woke me up at 0450 this morning I was not a happy camper.  Once I was at work it was an uneventful day.  Other than me doing patient care and muli-tasking while she slept.  I set up a few more book signing events in the very busy month of October,  locked in a venue for next year's Paracon-Oklahoma (our paranormal conference we do each year), and paid a few vital bills.
   It's hard to sit at work when your patient's house hold is all asleep.  I sleep with a fan on and the gentle hum of my patient's machine makes me even more tired.  So I often put on a movie or show on the T.V. for background noise.  For some reason I chose to put on movies related to love an marriage.  For those of you who do not know me, I have made several mistakes in my life.  Two of those was marrying the wrong man.  The third time I finally got it right.  Even though I've been married three times, I have never had a real wedding.  I've been engaged more than I've been married, and I had started planning a wedding the first time I was engaged and young at the tender age of eighteen.  I even went as far as to try on a wedding dress the first time but I never actually got to have a wedding.  I started to plan a nice wedding with my current husband and we reserved a wedding venue, but we never did get to have our wedding.  I refused to plan the wedding of my dream when I knew I wouldn't look good in a dress.  I know that sounds vain, but 50 years down the road I want to be able to look at my wedding photos and not hate what I see, me overflowing like the stay puff marsh mellow man for beautiful wedding gown.  What's funny is when I see other obese women in their gowns, I don't see them the way I see myself.  I see them as happy and beautiful on their happy day but I know I would be critical of myself and I would never be able to bring myself to look at my pictures. 
   When I first started planning my wedding with Clint, I started purchasing all the little things I knew I would want.  I had my maid of honor chosen, along with a few brides maids.  I even made a mock up of what their bouguets would like like, rhinestones and all.  I hand beaded my wedding veil, spending over forty hours hand stitching on each fresh water pearl and crystal.  But that day never came.  I made my poor husband wait five years to marry me all because I was ashamed of my weight.  With the new Obama care act where everyone had to have insurance, I finally gave in and tied the know in a friend's little shop where she had us take our vows.  We told our family a few months and a few years later that we had in fact gotten married.  So I denied our families to witness our show of love because I hated the way I might look in a dress.  Still, I don't regret the decision.  I know I would never truly be happy on my wedding day had I put on a dress that would make me feel more self conscious than ever. 
   After we got married, when ever I would go to a friend's wedding or I'd watch a movie with a wedding scene I'd tear up.  My husband would always try to comfort me knowing how disappointed I was that I never had a nice wedding and that it hurt me so badly that my dad passed away before he could ever walk me down the isle. 
   As I sat and watched these wedding based movies it began to dawn on me that one day I may still be able to have the wedding of my dreams, that I may actually be able to put on that wedding dress and veil and feel beautiful as I walk down the isle to renew my vows to the man of my dream.  The man who has stuck beside me through thick and then, poor and poorer (there is not rich or richer here), sickness and in health, that luckily death has not parted. 
   As each day passes, I cross off one more day on my calendar and I hold on to the dream that maybe, just maybe this life changing event will occur.  I'm feeling anxious to start my pre-op diet and I'm shopping for the items I know I will need on my trip.  I'm planning things as if there is no doubt that this surgery will occur. 
   I decided today that my final step in "putting it out there in the universe so it WILL happen" movement, is going to be to go buy myself a medical bracelet that says I have had the gastric sleeve.  It's another topic that we discussed in our Facebook group.  It let's the first-responders and doctors know that we have had the sleeve and to take extra precautions with emergency procedures and medications.  I'm willing it, there for it will be. 
   So today my anxiety and emotions are centered around the pre-surgical jitters and the "one day I will be able to" effect.  It's been a truly exhausting day but in a way it's also been a positive one.  Thirty three more days until surgery!