Diary of a Wedding Planning Machine: I Can't Cope

I never planned to do two of these posts back to back but it's just the way things pan out.

As you might be able to tell from the title, I'm not doing too well right now.

I'm seriously considering calling off the wedding.

Yes, I'm serious.

I just can't cope anymore. Last night I had an 'episode'. I just wasn't myself. It was the straw that finally broke my back. I found out the invitations went out with the wrong year on them. Now I feel so stupid and if any smart arse says to me, "Oh I've missed your wedding by a year," I swear I won't hold my vicious tongue back.

Maybe that doesn't seem like a big deal to some people but it matters to me. I have spent so much time and money on those invitations. The sheer amount of guests mean it has taken us ages. Every night I've been up cutting, gluing and writing. Yes, we've had help from other people but I'm finding most people are just too busy. By the time we can actually arrange a time to get people around, it's quicker to just do it myself.

I haven't had a good night's sleep in a long time. I've been waking up several times per night and sometimes I can't get to sleep until the early hours of the morning. I'm so tense and wide awake that I can't settle down, then I'm a zombie during the day at work and when the night comes I can't sleep again.

Last night, I knew I'd hit a new low when I started helping myself to my housemate's Panadeine Forte which causes drowsiness. Now I'm at work, feeling even worse but I didn't have much choice. I'm trying to go and see a doctor but they're always booked. I just want something to calm me down and help me sleep. I want to beg them to prescribe me some drugs because I don't know what else could possibly help.

Maybe, in a small way, I can understand how Heath Ledger must have felt.

I can't sleep at night and when I finally do get to sleep, it's time to wake up. Only then I'm in zombie mode and can't get up. So I come to work later (I'm on flexi time) and then I have to stay later to make up the time. Then I spend all my weeknights and weekends doing wedding stuff and have people whinge at me that I never catch up with them, so I try to see them and it makes my tiredness worse.

It's a vicious cycle.

I'm sick of well-meaning people who suggest things like massages to calm me down. Don't you think that if I had TIME to have a massage, I'd do it? It's only a Bandaid solution. It doesn't take away the underlying problem. People say, "I want to help you," to which I reply, "Then take away the thing that's causing the stress."

That's the wedding and work.

But they can't take them away, can they?

Work is the craziest its been for a long time. Next week is orientation which means the campus will be flooded with new students. I'm down for my heaviest teaching load in ages and I just don't know how I'll make it on top of everything else. If I pull out, everyone will just start bitching about me behind my back. All day long something else is added to my 'to do' list and I'm always being asked why something isn't finished.

I just want to quit my job and elope with maybe our immediate families and our pastor. I still want to marry Duncan, that's not the issue, I just don't want this wedding in its current form. I look at people who have 80-100 guests and I seeth with jealousy, wanting that so bad instead of the 180-200 guests we're going to have. I honestly don't care if lots of people can't come; in fact I'm hoping they don't. I know it sounds evil but I just can't handle crowds. The engagement party was bad enough, the wedding is going to be much worse. I don't want people gawking at me, I just want to be left alone. Duncan has SO MANY relatives, there's no way we can halve our list. We either have to have everyone...or no-one.

I'm terribly afraid I'm going to get sick on my honeymoon. It always happens when I finally get downtime after a very busy and stressful period.

Part of me feels we're too far into the preparations to call everything off now. I have no choice but to go ahead. And I'm quite sure Duncan wants everything how it is. We're meeting tonight to have a talk about what to do...and I really don't know what to do.

Because another part of me does want to share the day with everyone. I'm worried that if we eloped then I'll look back and regret not having everyone there. I just don't know how I'd make it through the wedding day. I wish I was like other girls who get through their weddings fine and don't have to make serious compromises and miss out because they just can't handle crowds and stress. I know it's not healthy to dread your own wedding day.

I'm also sick of people who make vacant blank offers to help us and when we actually accept their offer they say they're too 'busy'. Well, if you're too 'busy' then why did you offer in the first place if you were only going to let me down?

I'm also sick of people who say "chill" or "calm down" or "don't stress." I'm TRYING to do that. Do they actually think I want to be like this?

I wish I could be one of those super humans who cruise through their wedding preparations and the actual day (or at least appear to). I wish I could could cope better with everything. I wish I didn't get so stressed. I wish I didn't need a nana nap on weekends because I sleep better during the day than at night for some strange reason. I wish people who take on too much weren't upheld as martyrs (particularly in churches) and made out to be more godly because they have people over for dinner every night, have 10 kids and participate in all the church's ministries. Every time I tell people I'm not coping, they give me a strange look as if they're thinking they or someone else take on much more than me and they're not stressed.

Well I'm not Super Susan or Amazing Annie or whoever else they know.

I'm me and I'm a person with serious limitations. It's actually very liberating to admit that. Someone has to be the first to drop their mask and if it has to be me, then so be it.

One of my friends has been pulling out of a lot of things because she just can't do it all. Another friend left our engagement party early because he couldn't handle the crowd. If anything good has come out of this, is that it's making me a lot more compassionate towards these people and I admire their courage to realise their own limitations; to pull back and not care what others think.
It was so refreshing talking to a family friend last night because she actually understood me. She said if that had happened to her wedding invitations, she would have reacted far worse than I did and that her husband is always the calm one. It was so great that she didn't judge me and when she says she'll help, she actually keeps her word. She's not one of those who say they'll help but don't want to forfeit a night out with their other friends to do it.

It's a relief that my mum finally understands. She said that my health comes before the wedding.

I'm wondering if God is punishing me for being like Martha and not like Mary in the Bible. But I don't have time to pray or do Bible study. I call out to God to take it all away but he doesn't.

I just want to go back to Melbourne and sit in a hotel room and watch TV and movies all day. Or maybe go to a deserted beach somewhere and just read.

I can relate to Jenny's prayer in Forrest Gump
"Dear God. Please turn me into a bird so I can fly far far away."