Our Counseling Guru

Naturally, since we are getting married in June, Kyle and I have been attending pre-marital counseling at our church in Winfield. We really enjoy our therapist and I normally walk away week to week intrigued by the knowledge that she passes on to us. One of the things that Kyle and I have talked about with her during the last few sessions has been enmeshment vs. disengagement -- two states that are better avoided in a marriage. Enmeshment is the idea that couples have to be together all of the time. Often times, couples who are suffering from enmeshment will claim that their significant other "completes" them and they cannot see where they end and the other person begins. The opposite of that, then, is disengagement. Couples who are disengaged from one another tend to be closed off and far from their significant other. As you can imagine, both states are damaging. Kyle and I are pretty good at spending time together and time apart and that has always been pretty important to us. Even though I am marrying Kyle, I don't want him to complete me! And I certainly do not want to live with a stranger. I want him to complement me. I want to be a better person because he is around...

Maybe a Vase with Bamboo

So, tonight, Kyle and I celebrated Valentine's. He planned it all out. One of the things he planned was for us to go out to Olive Garden to eat. We went to the newest one in Derby, which is right next to Target. It's getting close to time for us to register for our wedding, so I thought it would be a good idea to go scope out some potential registry items after supper and Kyle agreed. We have an idea of how we want things in our house (or should I say, I have an idea). Kyle kind of lets me go with the decorating flow. However, I have learned some things about him when I ask for his opinion and I am trying to make this "decorating: marriage style" thing work. Tonight, when we were looking around, Kyle was saying some of the most HILARIOUS stuff. So, I started nonchalantly taking notes on my phone so I could blog, verbatim, what he said. Here are a few Kyle moments:

• We have decided on a comforter already that we want for our bed. The comforter is slate gray, so we were looking at sheets to accent it. I thought a blue or darker yellow would go great as an accent color with the bedspread. Kyle, on the other hand, wasn't a fan of either color. So, we talked about sheets for quite a bit. Then, we were moving on and he said to me..."That was long." I responded with, "What was long?" and he said "We just had a detailed discussion...about sheets."
• Moving on, we were looking at other comforters, just to see if there was anything else that we liked better than the slate gray one. I found a purple one with a modern floral design and asked him if he liked it (every time I ask him what color he wants our living room/kitchen/bathroom/bedroom to be, he says "purple"). He looked at me and said, "I don't really like it. I just don't want to sleep under flowers."
• Ok -- moving forward. We moved on to housing decor. I found a huge black floor vase. I said to Kyle, "Hey, this vase is fun." He responded and said "Ya! I like that thing." I thought to myself..."Phew...winning." And I then said, "I think it would look fun with some bamboo in it or something." He looked at me blankly and said, "You mean, that's not for our umbrellas and canes?"
• We then proceeded to have a strange quabble about clocks. Kyle got really excited when we reached the clock area. He said "I really like to have clocks in all of the rooms, so I know what time it is, but I don't like fancy clocks, I just like simple clocks." Hmmm...I don't know how I feel about lots of clocks. So, he found a weather radar/clock combination and insisted we register for it instead.

That's just a little bit of registry fun. I seem to learn something new everyday, even about my future spouse. I think it can be summed up like this: purple, clocks, no.flowers.at.all, white/gray sheets (although, he liked the idea of Zebra accent pillows...say what?), maybe a vase with bamboo.

Honorable Hourglass

This weekend, I was blessed by a local women's retreat! It was great to "get away" for an evening and morning and just have fun learning in the presence and experience of other women. During this morning's session, there was a Q and A panel with four local ladies. One of the ladies was answering a question and was talking about the importance of honoring time. This is something that I have been thinking about a lot -- since last summer, really, and I thought it would be good to blog about it.

One of the things I have discovered over the past year is the importance of honoring time. To each season, there is an importance, a relevance, a purpose. Last summer, I couldn't wait to get engaged. I had been dating Kyle for almost two years and it was just time. I didn't know when things were going to happen, but when summer was about to end and we weren't engaged yet, I spent more time panicking than anything else. Wondering when the time would come. Hmmm.

My current journal is blue. I refer to is as my "blue" journal, too. It is full of too many boo-hoos. There was a time right before I was engaged that I just decided that I really needed to strive to live in the moment, honor time, let it be what it would be. Then, low and behold, engagement day came. Now, I find myself having to sit back and enjoy my engagement. It's also my last semester of college -- instead of freaking out about my future, I need to slow down and enjoy this time. How important it is to not "check out" yet -- to not ditch friends yet, academics, professors, college life. It's not my time to go find a full-time job yet. It's not time quite yet. I think honoring time is a discipline that is going to be more beneficial if it's learned now. It's time to honor time. You're not getting these current moments back.