Suckerpunch

Relationships are weird.

And I'm not talking about romantic. I'm talking friends, acquaintances, family...all that chiz.

I've had three revelations in the past few days, and it's been weird. So it's time for a little venting, a'ight?

STORY #1:
My cousin, whom I love dearly, is getting married...one month after me. I've known that for a while, but I was like meh. Whatevs. I can deal, right?

Well, I found out that she has changed her date at least half a dozen times before settling. She even made her sister, who's my favorite cousin, get married in October because her original date would have conflicted. She didn't want to get married in October, and I had to miss it because it was production week for Joseph.

Then I found out that she didn't know my wedding date until after she had announced her official one. And she wanted to have me change mine because she thought that I had just now picked it, and certainly I can change it?

Um, the answer is HECKA NO.

Luckily, my uncle not only stood up for me and my three-year engagement, but he also asked my other relatives if they would have to choose between the weddings. Luckily, none of them will.

All this happened a while ago, but it still makes me a bit sad that it had to happen in the first place.

STORY #2:
A family friend is throwing a wedding shower for us. Yay! It's very nice of her, and we appreciate it.

It's just been a little awkward. Because she's been asking me, and my mom, and P's mom for input (which is kind of a faux pas). And she was rather rude to my MOH, who had been trying to plan a shower. And she invited a lot of church ladies that, while I'm sure they're very nice, I don't know who they are. And...

...and for some reason the invitation included "mark you calendars for (wedding date and time)."

Um...wha?

Luckily all of us had that reaction, and I was elected to ask her as politely as possible if that could be taken off. Because...yeah. Yeah. Awkward.

STORY #3:
There's a guy that's been in my circle of friends for a while. He used to be super nice, but now...now, not quite so much. He's the master of passive-aggressive fighting.

Things have been strained between me and him for a while, but he's been a friend of P's since high school, so I'm like "Meh. Send him an invite."

Well, I found out that for the past (nearly) four years that I've been with P, he's been telling everyone that we'd never last and things would never work out. So either he's waiting to see us break up in the next thirty-six days, or he's waiting to hear news of our divorce.

UM, WHAT?

Yeah.

This is the face of a non-happy camper.

I've tried to get along with this dude, but no more. No more, my friends. I am done. Because there's so much more detail I could go into to explain this reaction, but this is not the best forum for it.

But yeah.

Three suckerpunches. Oy. No good, my friends. No good.

The Name Game

I've seen a lot of debate about changing your last name to your husband's after the wedding. Everybody has their reasons for changing, or not changing, or hyphenating, or combining, and I think it's awesome. There's no good reason for following tradition blindly.

Personally, I will be changing my name. For me, it is a symbol that I am officially creating a new family with my new husband, and the name change goes hand in hand with the change in my life. I will be adding my maiden name as a third middle name (and seeing as how my maiden name is a fairly standard boy's name, it won't be too odd).

I also think that changing my last name to my husband's will make life easier for our children. We want at least three, and I don't really want to have to make them explain why their hyphenated last name is so terribly long, or why Mommy's last name is different from theirs.

That being said, P's very lovely Cornish last name has three drawbacks.

#1: It's impossible to pronounce.

#2: It's impossible to spell.

#3: It rhymes.

P's last name is Trevathan. Apparently in Cornwall it's as common as "Smith" or "Jones," but over here it just gets funny looks and hesitant "Trev...Trev...um..."

(For the record, it's pronounced tre-VAY-than.)

And while I am happy to take his last name, there's one thing holding me back. You know Julia Goolia in the Wedding Singer? Well, I'm going to be Caitlin Trevathan.

Yeah. Drink that in for a bit.

It's silly, but it's a little annoying at the same time. It sounds made-up.

On the other hand, it would look GREAT as a stage name!

Adventures of a Child Bride

All right, so I'm not really a child bride. (Although P gets plenty of robbing the cradle jokes. I mean, seriously. I'll be twenty-three next month and I still have people ask me "So, when are you starting college, honey?" It's a bit ridic. I mean, take a look at this:)

(Also, please disregard my terrible, terrible tan lines. That's what happens when you work in Disney World...)

I was only nineteen years old when P and I decided to get married. We met in 2004, we started dating in March of '06, and by September of that year he gave me his purity ring on a necklace to wear until he could formally propose. We wanted to keep it a secret- so naturally, everyone knew. And we got a lot of flack for it.

One very dear high school friend sent me an email begging me to reconsider. She had a good point- after all, P was my first boyfriend. And I was a freakin' teenager! She made an analogy about ice cream- sure, if I've only had vanilla, it'll be my favorite. But if I try chocolate and strawberry and chocolate chip cookie dough, maybe I'll realize that one of them is my favorite instead.

Basically, she thought I should date around. But I'm as stubborn as the day is long, and I stuck by my decision. It's been three years since we made that choice on a warm September night, and I've never regretted it.

Getting engaged as a teenager certainly doesn't work for everyone, but it worked for me. It worked for us. We've had the last four years to mature and form our future together. I'm not the same starry-eyed kid I was at nineteen, but growing up hasn't made me love him less or grow so accustomed to him that I forget to value and work on our relationship.

And surprisingly, I think one of the key reasons we've made it work is that we still had vibrant lives outside of each other. He went to school in Murfreesboro while I went to school in Green Hills (about an hour apart). He worked at the mall and lived with his guy friends in an apartment decked out with anime posters and every video game console known to man (and a couple known only to monkeys) while I spent hours and hours in rehearsals and went out with my girlfriends for midnight snack runs and afternoon pottery painting sessions. Granted, when we did see each other, we made the most of it. But we continued to build independent lives and independent friendships.

Sure, we were eligible for Engaged and Underaged on MTV, and sure, we agonized over the years and years of engagement (I called it Engagement Purgatory). And it didn't make it any easier that we decided to not have sex until our wedding night. (We've held to that, but it wasn't easy in the slightest!) I'm still glad that I said yes before I was old enough to drink. He is the right man for me, and age won't ever change that.