On manifest excitement...

When I was a kid, the highlights of my summers were going somewhere on my own. My parents would ship me off to Iowa for sports camps for a week at a time so I could hone my basketball skills or get a kickstart to my cross country season. Or I'd spend a week or so getting filthy at my grandparents' farm, trouncing through the woods or stalking game of turtles and frogs.

I loved it.

I'd get excited about it.

And I have a very peculiar way of getting excited about things.

I plan.

I remember sitting in the middle of my closet, in front of an empty duffel bag, plotting exactly what I'd bring. I'd make to-do lists, schedules for outfits, a training plan that took me right up to the first day of camp. I'd try to picture everything in my head and plan, plan, plan.

Years have gone by, I have no athletic skills left to hone and I rarely get opportunity to hunt reptiles. But I still have that peculiar way of getting excited.

You can imagine how this has played out as I look forward to starting my new life with Eric.

When he told me way back when that he figured we'd be married in six months, I wanted to know just what that meant for my plans. For Jesus Film. For where I would live. For where we'd live after. Where I'd work, etc. etc., etc. After that, for so long, I wanted a date for the wedding. Just a date, so I had a fixed axis around which to build my gameplan.

Now I have it, the day is soon approaching and I know we'll be bunking at his loft.

And, obviously, I'm pretty excited about marrying Eric.

And so... I plan. I prepare. I plan some more.

(And, yes, each day I probably chip away at Eric's sanity and patience with me...)

I want to isolate as many variables as I can, eliminate them from the post-wedding equation. I want to take care of what I can as soon as possible. I like to unclutter things. I want to make it so that after we get married Saturday, we can come home to a relatively put-together loft on Sunday.

When we get dishes as gifts, I wash them up and swap them out with Eric's old bachelor wares that same day.

When E gave me the OK to paint the pepto-bismal walls a less nauseating color, I collected and poured over paint samples and was ready to paint the next week. It still naws on me that we haven't done it. I want to land in the new place and relax. And I have this mindset of, if not now, when?! Let me paint!

I'm beginning to panic because we don't have furniture. We don't have a couch. No dressers, no where to put my clothes. No bookshelves that aren't falling apart. No bedclothes, for crying outloud. Not even a set of sheets or a comforter that fits the bed. (Though Eric argues his twin-sized blanket fits him, and that's all that matters.) And then the stuff we do have is... well, had its proper place in Eric's spartan bachelor pad, ya know?

Ugh.

I want to make it nice, I want to make it inviting, I want to make it a home that we can minister out of.

And, yes, my weakness is... I want it that way now. Before the wedding.

My mom says I create my own drama, my own stress. And I know she's right. She laughs and tells Eric that once I get my mind on something, I won't rest until it's finished. But I don't know any other way to get excited about things. All I know is planning, dreaming, planning, preparing.

It's a good thing Eric is a patient man and, so far, does well with my tendency to hedgehog in one direction. He's even doing a splendid job of helping to keep me sane.

Though I can't quite shake my longing to round up that furniture or put a group of his high schoolers on painting the kitchen... For shame.