Will you Mary him Part 3.

I woke up with this glimmer of hope from the night before, more relaxed and out of my head about everything. It was our first day together where we didn’t HAVE to do anything. No work. No appointments. Nothing. We set out as usual in search for coffee. On our way, Patrick suggested we give a homeless man our food we brought for breakfast. I asked him if he needed prayer and he shared how he was in a car accident and had a lot of pain in his back. As we prayed for him we felt the presence of God fall upon us. When we were done praying I asked on a scale of 1-10 if it was a 10 before what is it now? he said it was a 3 and was full of so much joy!! We all started thanking God and prayed a couple more times for God to continue the good thing he had started in this man! We were both so encouraged God wanted to pour out his love and power in the name of Jesus! Already the morning started off in a fantastic place.Patrick wanted to show me the Cloud Gardens, so we walked over to see the beautiful architecture of the building and greenhouse. It was so fun connecting with him through art! Then we hopped in a cab to head over to an old mansion called Casa Loma. The cab driver told us stories as we drove through the rain and trees listening to Frank Sinatra. It was like we were inside a classic film. Romance and nostalgia filled the car. We get to the the mansion and walked into the beautiful library that looked like it was straight out of Beauty and the Beast. Patrick took my hand and we began to waltz. NO I mean we literally started waltzing; weaving in and out of the people there inside the huge library. I love how in a split second we can go from normal humans to musical fairytale characters.

Eventually we found our way outside in the backyard gardens. It was raining so no one was out there except for us. We ran through the tree's the gardens and kissing in the rain. If our life was a movie, this def. would have been a moment where the music was building and the audiences eyes fill with tears of joy. We explored, giggled, then watched a video showcasing Casa Loma’s history until we were too hungry to go on any further. However, we didn’t know how to get out of the castle?! Through an underground passageway we found ourselves at the mansion’s stables that were on the other side of the road. We saw that the wall bordering the museum wasn’t too high, and after checking for security, we took the risk and hopped the wall, running away before anyone could notice! Sneekys…

We began our excursion in search for food. We continued to laugh and converse as we travelled the streets full of trees and drops of rain. Patrick took me to a chic vegan cafe. As we were there talking and talking, laughing and laughing I get a text from my friend Val who had been praying for me. She shared this vision she had where I am hanging on the side of a cliff in a chiffon pink wedding dress. Patrick was standing at the edge offering me his hand. There was a huge trench between the cliff I’m hanging off of and another cliff in the far distance. I’m pointing to the other cliff saying to Patrick “we should be there!” even though the direction I’m pointing towards there is no way to get there. There was a huge gaping abyss falling so far down there’s no floor. As Patrick offers me his hands he asks, “are you willing to go with me, even if it looks different than how you imagined”? She shared that she felt the gaping abyss represented all my fears and the unknown. Ultimately it would be my choice if I wanted to choose Patrick to journey with him to the place my heart longs to be. What my friend didn’t know was that the original wedding dress that I saw and fell in love with when I first knew that I would marry Patrick back in January was a pink chiffon dress and my family had a cow because they all wanted me to be in a white dress to represent my virginity. Just the simple fact the God gave her vision of the dress my heart longed for it confirmed something in my heart that God knows my desires but also wants me to be brave and make a choice; he wouldn’t force me to do anything, but he was on Patrick’s side to lead me towards the vision I have for my life.

As I read the text my eyes filled with tears. It put a fire in my heart to say, yes I can do this, I want to do this, I can make this choice. They were tears of truth, not sadness. Despite all my fears and hesitation, this relationship is a good thing. We left the cafe and were journeying in and our of different stores and just cracking jokes, I couldn’t stop laughing. I remember thinking, gosh when I’m not freaking out and free from fear we do amazingly. It’s when I'm in my head and worrying that everything falls apart. This laughing thing? I could totally sign up for this for the rest of my life. Then while we were walking I saw this huge statue of a diamond ring. I felt in my heart that I was to tell him that I would marry him inside that ring. Feeling spontaneous and not altogether sure what the heck I was doing, I sat him in the ring and asked, “Patrick Cook, will you marry me on July 22nd”? Of course the answer was yaaaaas! (queen). No, but really he just was full of so much joy, said yes and was fully enlivened and energized! [He shared with me later that he felt in his heart I was going to ask him the second he saw the ring as well].

Things had been going so well I didn’t want to jinx it so I said "okay but no more talk about wedding stuff lets just keep enjoying the day"! He agreed but wanted to tell his family so they could buy tickets. Reasonable. Now jinxing is not a thing, but through my journey of fear and anxiety I realized that I was actually very superstitious about everything. I felt like my whole life was balancing on a thread and one wrong move would make everything come crashing down. I realized whether it was though a verse of the day, an advertisement, a movie, you name it I was always looking for something to tell me “the way you are doing life is wrong and it’s all going to be taken from you”. I’ve had quite a few broken dreams in my life as well as breeches of trust from men (just crazy amounts of trauma) where I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wasn’t super aware of this revelation at this time, but that is why I didn’t want to talk wedding stuff, my stability was so fragile and completely built on what I felt. Not trust or confidence, but my ever-changing feelings.

We then went to ROM a beautiful museum that sort of looks like MOMA from the outside. Expecting to see modern art because of the architecture, we were surprised to find ourselves in a dinosaur museum. Very random. Patrick would make impressions of what he thought each animal would say or sound like and we couldn’t stop laughing. He has this hidden talent where he can make the silliest voices and witty sayings that fit perfectly with a strange moment or animal. I couldn’t stop laughing. We were having so much fun! Eventually our legs were beginning to make us weary from the 6-8 hours of walking we had done at this point and we were in need for some serious food. We began to walk towards our hotel and I got to share my heart and frustrations with him about my current job and changing jobs. He’s such a good listener. He encouraged me and let me vent without losing his own joy. He does such a good job of letting me be in a different place than him emotionally and not letting that rob his joy at all.

We knew we were in a city of great food but we were spent. We walked into a Blaze Pizza to get a taste of home and some much needed energy. Then we walked back to our hotel, got our bathing suites on and headed to the indoor hot tub and pool. It was around 9pm so it was only open for another hour. The pool was heated so we jumped in there first. We like to play this game where we act like we are circus artists/ professional yoga duet partners and create ridiculous balancing acts (since there is no fear of gravity in a pool) while saying “Yoooooooooooooooo-Ga!” It’s very weird but it makes us laugh a lot. Following this experimental time we began our synchronized swimming routine that we improvised while I sang out our music. We def. looked insane but it was too funny. We then crawled into the much too small jacuzzi for there to be an old man inside of with us. We stayed in for about one hot awkward minute and then cuddled up in our towels and sat in a little hammock bed they head. I remember looking at him and just feeling so joyful and dreamy and in love. Cozy and happy. Warm.

We then went back to the room to wind down as it was very late. I wanted to snuggle and cuddle and give kisses and Patrick wanted to wind down and watch TV. Getting offended that he didn't want to cuddle me my brain jumped from A- Z. I thought Oh no, if he doesn’t want to kiss me right now and wants to watch tv, what if when we get married he eventually would rather watch tv than have sex with me and not love me well and be an old chubby man who watches tv and drinks beer and stays home while I’m left hanging sad and lonely. Yes, this is what my brain does. CRAZINESS. So I get so sad thinking this moment means that future Patrick would rather drink beer and watch tv than have sex with his wife. I express this crazy thought, "you would rather watch tv than kiss me? Why can’t you wind down kissing me?” He says "because I want to be intentional when I kiss you and I'm just so tired and need to turn off my brain for a second. I’m not choosing this over you, I would like to do this with you." I'm furious. I know like what the heck he's being so reasonable and I"m acting like an insane sitcom wife. I go to the bathroom because I know I’m being unreasonable. I come back, and in a way too harsh of a tone and say "okay great let’s watch TV. What I want is not of greater value than what you want and I don’t want to make you kiss me so we should just watch tv". WHAT A BRAT I WAS. Patrick looks at me very confused. And with a slight laugh says “what is happening right now? I feel like this is a trap. I'm going to take a shower because I am very confused what just happened”.

I knew I was being a brat, but I couldn’t get my feelings to freaking line up with love. He came back out of the shower, so gentle, sat on the edge of the bed and said, “hey, it felt for a moment there that I wasn’t allowed to want something different than you and thats not okay. I love you so much and I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings and maybe I didn’t articulate this well. I do want to be with you and watch tv with you, I thought it would be a fun way to wind down together since we both like Jimmy Fallon and love laughing at his jokes. I’m sorry that I hurt you, we can just cuddle, I'm just very tired from our long day”. Wow, was I HUMBLED. It was in that moment that a new respect for him grew in my heart. I was wrong. def. but he told me in a way that was kind and loving and chose connection through it. I knew I was in the wrong and he didn’t let me get away with being a brat which actually let me feel super safe. He also never said I was being a brat or unreasonable, but was full of love and tenderness. I was still mad but comforted in a deep place. We cuddled me for a bit till I fell asleep and then he crawled into his bed. Even though there was that tiny hiccup that popped up at the end of the night because of my fear, the day was still incredible and one of my favorites. Each and every conflict God has taught us what it means to “fight fairly’ and be gentle and continues to give me eyes for when it’s a moment of insecurity and fear or something worth talking about. Each day I feel the under-developed young girl inside of me maturing each and ever day into a loving wife who will be able to laugh in the face of fear. God is such a good teacher.