things sneak up!

like July. July is sneaking up on me! the past year has felt like a literal WHIRLWIND, and it doesn't seem like it's going to slow down any time soon. think about it, just since January last year I've moved states, gotten a job, found a boyfriend who quickly became a fiance, got ourselves a cat, started the process of looking for our own place - which we're hoping to have by the end of March! - and we're going to get married in July, just a year after we met. HOLY COW. I feel like I'm living in fast forward. and now it's actually 2012, getting closer to July every day - it's almost March right now - and it hits me, this is about to be REAL. I'm going to be married. we'll have our own place. and not years from now, THIS YEAR. in four months. I've been sitting here comfortably thinking of this as a thing in the future, and then it snuck up and now it is here. agh!

well, it's been, is, and will continue to be a pretty crazy ride, at least for the foreseeable future. but I think it's all going to turn out well. I'm excited, anyway. a little nervous... well, okay, a lot nervous, but I know it's going to be worth it in the end. this isn't ever where I would have seen myself being this time two years ago. but I think it's better. for the most part, I'm happy. there are some aspects of my life that could use some improvement, but there's very little I could actually point at and say, 'that right there, that's what's making me unhappy.' that's a pretty good place to be, I think. I have a lot to be thankful for. not the least of which IS my wonderful fiance, who, yes, will be my wonderful husband a lot sooner than it feels like!

I at least have a pretty cool dress, which I need to tweak the fit of just a bit but that I think will look good on me. well, I mean. it does look good on me. I did try it on :P but I think it will look particularly good once I get the proper undergarments and modify the fit a little. I need to get some shoes to wear with it, and figure out what I want to do with my ungodly hair, and ooh! I need wedding jewelry! mostly just earrings, I don't wear much in the way of other jewelry anymore. but this is a wonderful excuse to finally go pore over all the lovely shinies at Bodyartforms again :P

we're just going to have a small private ceremony, but we want to have a big party afterwards for all our family and friends, and we totally haven't started planning that at all except that Jacob is insisting we have dancing, and that we do have to have a first dance. ACK. I am not a dancer... but okay. also, I'm really excited about the registry I've been building. I have plenty of stuff for a house, since I've obviously lived in an apartment before, but I'd love to have some NICE stuff, and it's fun going through and picking out stuff to put on a list :P even if we just get a few things, I'll be excited!

at any rate... I have been feeling kind of down and ugh lately, but I think I might be managing to pull myself back up out of it now. and at least I've managed to be consistently excited about things like moving into our own place and getting married. if I really couldn't be excited about anything, then I'd be worried. I've even started knitting again. that's a nice improvement, and a good measure of me feeling better, it seems like. I don't even have to feel guilty about the yarn I'm using since I finally spent that Hobby Lobby gift card my sister got me for my birthday! and I've been forcing myself out of the house more often, even just to run down to Kroger to buy little things I need instead of waiting around until Jacob and I can go together. I like getting out of the house, really, so that usually makes me happier anyway. I should start going down to the coffeehouse to read and stuff. when it gets warmer I'm totally going to go walk around Bridge Street more often again. I always enjoy that.

now, to wait for Jacob to finally get home! we're going out to eat with his mom tonight... so this should be fun :P

I keep being nostalgic for Starkville. it doesn't make any sense to me. yeah, I had a few good years there. it was home, for all intents and purposes, and I knew where things were and had favorite places and people I saw all the time (whether or not they were actually 'friends') and... most of the time I was happy. to some degree I miss the relationship I had then, but that's water under a much, much higher, happier bridge now, so I don't think anything but the feeling of being happy then is what I'm missing.

I want to be happy where I am, and I have a lot of reasons to, but I feel like I'm still not 'home.' Jacob and I have been scouting out apartments and we're hoping to be in a new place by March, but I'm not sure even that will do it, though it will be SO nice to finally stop living in someone else's space, and maybe I'll finally feel like getting out of the house and find some cool places around the city. still, I have a noted lack of friends aside from Jacob, and I feel kind of out of touch with here. I've had a job for a whole year now, but I still feel like a newbie (despite three training classes having come in). I don't know how to fix this, really.

I keep having really weird dreams and stuff, and it just keeps popping up in my head, and it's bothering me. I feel guilty about it, because I feel like I shouldn't feel this way. I mean, my driver's license says Alabama. I'm filing taxes here this year, and I'm about to be married and living in an apartment here. this, now, is home. but somehow I don't feel like I belong here. I remember one time when I went to visit Keni I sat in the driveway for a while and just cried because Starkville felt so weird to me and I didn't see how it would ever feel like home. it didn't take me very long for that feeling to change and to feel like it really was. I wish I knew when Huntsville would start feeling like home, or how to speed that process up. I'm ready to stop missing somewhere I can't go back to.

I wish so much that it was viable to just run away. get in my car, drive somewhere, just be THERE for a while and not here. I am so sick of being here. everything I do is wrong or futile or frivolous to the point I feel guilty doing it, everyone is either hostile or condescending or is accidentally getting taken advantage of by me, and I feel so stuck. more little things keep popping up as well. ugh, so irritating.

I really can't deal with the thought of going to work tomorrow. I can't deal with doing much of anything right now because the times when my brain decides to involuntarily incapacitate me always seem to coincide with the times I have tons of important crap to do. I kinda hate life right now. so it's really not so surprising that I want to just run away... starting over always sounds so nice, but irony of ironies, you need money for that too...