I want to feel your love, will you reveal your love?
Please, don’t keep your love hidden away
I want to free your heart, I want to see your heart
Please, don’t keep your heart hidden away
(Josh Groban “Hidden Away”)
One of the nice things about being engaged and planning your wedding is the fact that I can act like I’m crazy-in-love (cuz I am) and very few people will give me the stink-eye or tease me about it. Okay, so maybe not so much the teasing – my family teases me plenty (always has) about how sappy I can be at times – but I don’t feel the pressure to put up the front of always being sedate and sensible when it comes to love (yes, I’m a people-pleaser, how did you know?! and yes, my younger siblings gag during kissy scenes in movies!). Of course, there’s a place and time for being sensible (premarital counseling!), but right now, there’s more of a time and place to relish being sentimental and madly, madly in love.
Don’t get me wrong – I haven’t been an iceberg! But – and there’s my emotional purity and modesty hang-ups (i.e., don’t act like you like a guy because you aren’t supposed to like guys) from my teenage years talking again – for the longest time I felt guilty for showing exactly what’s in my heart, even littlest things. For instance, I found myself biting my tongue and waffling back and forth as to whether or not it was okay to say that I loved him until we’d been going out for almost a year. You don’t say you love someone unless you are going to marry them – at least, that’s what the courtship rules say. And heaven forbid a girl says it first! And then there’s the other rules, which vary in strictness depending on which advocates are pushing them: no holding hands, no hugging, no kissing, no being alone in the car together, always be chaperoned…
And on and on it goes.
It still spills over a bit now and then. A few months ago, I found myself wondering if it’s okay to steal a kiss from him in front of his family (yes, I over-think!) and than rolling my eyes at myself. Yes, it’s okay! I’m engaged to marry him, for pete’s sake and I have a feeling his family has some inkling that we’re just a little crazy-in-love with each other! 😉 We’re engaged, it’s time to tell everyone that we’re planning a wedding and we’re getting married because, well, we love each other.
And so, these days, I don’t feel badly for holding his hand and counting down the days until I see him and the days until our wedding. I don’t feel guilty for wanting to spend most of my weekend with him. I don’t feel guilty for getting all weak in the knees when he looks at me a certain way or for making his favorite food when I know he’s coming over. I don’t feel guilty for stealing quick kisses or for slipping out of a full house to take a walk around the block with him, just to be alone with him. For scribbling notes and mailing them to him, even though I’ll see him in just a couple days. For using up most of my text plan on him. For wearing clothes he likes. For running to the door when he first arrives at my house.
So…get used to it, teasing siblings. Get used to it, co-workers who roll their eyes. Get used to it, world! I will be sensible as situations allow, but overall, the lovey-doveyness is here to stay. Forever, I hope! 😀