Engagement, Surgery, and World Games - Oh, My! (Wedding Planning and Jury Duty)

As part of the mental health issues I deal with, I can be a little (ahem!)... a lot obsessive. No, it's not true OCD but sometimes it feels like it. 

Wedding planning was one of those times for me. 

A combination of factors led to a crazy frenzy of wedding planning during the months of April, May, and June:

- Pure, unadulterated excitement... 

I've been wanting to get remarried ever since my divorce was finalized almost 20 years ago. During that time I didn't just run around looking for a husband, but I did pray about it - a LOT. 

When I met my fiance', I knew how great we were for each other, but he had never been married and wasn't sure if he wanted to ever get married. 

The prayers started again in earnest. One thing I learned from my divorce is that God doesn't make someone do something so I knew my fervent prayers wouldn't necessarily lead to an eventual marriage. But I hoped so. 

When it happened, I was more than excited. All I wanted to do every waking minute was work on wedding plans. Those early days of planning were a blast - and other than considering cost, the sky was the limit for fun and unusual ways to celebrate this commitment we were making.

- Upcoming schedule concerns...

At the time I got engaged, I was scheduled for jury duty and I had applied for credentials to shoot The World Games. I was hopeful that I would be excused from jury duty and I doubted I'd get the credentials so my wedding planning wouldn't be affected.

I knew that those two events could potentially take out entire weeks of potential planning time - not only for the events themselves but for the time it would take to catch up on work and recover. After all, with some of my physical and mental health issues I can't go full-steam like I could when I was younger (unless I'm manic, which needs its own recovery time).

- Upcoming surgery...

I was supposed to have carpal tunnel surgery on both of my hands this past spring. Insurance problems caused me to delay both surgeries. 

In late June, I had the procedure done on my left hand. I had not anticipated how difficult routine tasks would be, especially typing, while having one hand compromised. 

It took longer than expected to heal from that first surgery and in early August I had my other hand done. This one is healing faster, but because it's my dominant hand, it has actually impacted me more.

It's been over two weeks and I'm just now getting back to where I can even type without much pain. (More about the surgeries in an upcoming post.)

So, now I'm less than 6 weeks away from the wedding. For once, my obsession worked in my favor. Even though I sometimes felt embarrassed to work so hard on the wedding when, at the time, it was months away, there is no way I could have worked on it with these factors involved. 

My stress level would have been sky-high if I had to do wedding planning on top of something like The World Games or jury duty plus my regular work.

I have to smile when I think about it. This wedding is not going to be like any other and some of the qualities I have like hyper-focusing, attention to detail, and wanting to stand out worked in my favor to make our wedding, as I've mentioned in the invitations, "a wedding you'll never forget."