Sheen.

5/2020 I always found it romantic when husbands would introduce their wives as a bride.  I don’t hear it often, but when I do it’s a very good feeling because when I do, he is not a  newlywed.  

I was talking to Matt one night about this and he laughed because I put it in terms he already had the feeling about us but he never heard the words to his feeling.  His smile lit up, thats how I knew.

It always feels funny to me when I think I am a wife, but when I think of Matt as my husband it feels good because I’ll never have the definition of what a good husband is, I just know it’s the feeling when Matt enters the room.  Contentment.  I like this word.  (We are taught to love everyone, but liking them is left up to us. 🙃) The word contentment is a mixture of content - peaceful happiness - and excitement.  

Now when I call myself a bride, I can get along very well with that.  😃🥰 

I am the perfect wife for Matt, but by my hopes for the wife I want to be for him, he lets me be, and that is enough for him.  

He chose me as his bride at the right time he knew for us.  (To this twelfth year in our marriage I ask him, “When did you know?” thinking I’ll finally get him to define that moment, but this is me putting it into my words - by his intuition.)

I don’t know how he knows (I mean I do, but it will always be beyond my understanding), but he knows me better than myself.  And that is comforting.  I rest in who I am in our friendship.   Come what may - the “what” will be nothing less than work in our marriage we will transform into joy.  I had faith and trust in that when he asked me.  “May” is welcoming the good and easy with the difficult and worth it.  

I asked him to put into his words our friendship, and he said - fun and interesting. 😬  I’ll say the interesting part has been our “difficult and worth it”, ie joyrides. 🥰

One of the hardest things to do for myself when preparing for our wedding was picking out my wedding dress.  For reasons that are just a part of me. 

I wanted something I felt comfortable and beautiful in.  (Finding comfort in clothes is a challenge for me.)  I always look to my mom to help me arrive to my vision.  She knows me first.  (Matt knows me as well as my mom does, and if that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is. ☺️) 

I found the photo of that dress, and the feeling of it being the one overwhelmed me.  I didn’t even know if it was available, I just had a vision, and it was like the dress knew me.  So Mom and I began the search for finding this dress.  

My favorite moment with my mom was trying on the dress in its true designed form- Thai silk- in a bridal salon in Houston.  (8/5/2020 -On, it felt like myself telling myself “Yes.” The feeling of my reflection in the dressing room felt that kind of beautiful. I stepped out into the light of the mirror in the showroom and) my mom drew my attention to an affirmation of my right choice - a father seated in front of that mirror as his daughter tried on wedding dresses, watched on as I gave the dress my try.  

The floor model I tried on was in my size and was actually for sale, but it was still out of the budget Mom and Dad set for my dress. (8/5/2020 Thai silk was like a bubbling glass of champagne in a beveled cut crystal flute with a delicate stem, but I wanted a dress made for- and worn by- me in the the first moment I knew my “Yes” would be everlasting #covenant) This was good, though, because our search paid off - I found  my dress in taffeta.  It is a more playful fabric.  And my great cousin, Rita, said just as I wanted to feel in my wedding dress - like a cupcake.  She said my dress had the sheen of icing. 🥰  Another memorable affirmation I made the right choice. 

But the greatest affirmation of making the right choice came today, almost twelve years later. I now know how I knew it was the dress.

I felt a powerful embrace in the drape of the material on the first day I opened my eyes widely before the reflection of I Am.  I was physically standing before an altar (8/3/2020 an altar being His altar as his bride).

8/5/2020 St. Mary’s Catholic Church - where my mother and father wed and where I wed Matt.