With a sigh of distance and panic

Sometimes it escapes me how people around me can miss the signs of my unhappiness, or unease, or general warnings. But then, I guess it's easy to forget that it isn't as obvious as it feels like it should be. I feel as though I'm screaming to the world pretty much all the time, but when I look at myself in the mirror it just looks like a slight slouch. Baffling.

At any rate, married life is, categorically, just about the same as life was before marriage. There are "married people things" that are now available to us, but that's really the only major difference. Life at large is harder for mostly unrelated reasons. Things just... hurt right now. Melody has far too much on her plate and is suffering badly for it, and I just don't know how to be my own person, it seems.

We'll have to just wait and see how all this plays out, but for now I'll just sign off with a sigh.

Mawwiage

"Mawwiage is what bwings us togevver... today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement..."

As the context here may perhaps suggest, I am now a married man. Melody Redmond, my wife, is currently right next to me in our hotel room at Lava Hot Springs, just over a day and a half into our life (officially) together. And boy, is it ever official. Yesterday morning, I met her at the Jordan River Temple, and we were sealed for time and all eternity at approximately 10:30 AM, October 12, 2011.

Thus far, the only real change is that we are allowed to take part in more of the procreative side of things. Otherwise, everything is shockingly similar to how it's just sorta always been between us. There was no Earth-shattering change made. Just a simple sealing ceremony -- beautiful, but simple -- and then a series of parties thrown on our behalf. That really was just about it. Next week, I think it's going to start setting in just how nuts this is for me: that is, that I'm moving out of my parents' house, into my grandmother's without her even being there, with a girl that I've only known temporally for a little over two years, and all of it for the sake of a future that will never exist if my faith is somehow misplaced. And yet, for all the reason I have to be terrified of all that's coming up, all I can do is just be happy with her. She's my life, literally the missing parts of my soul, given their own form. I love her with all that I am, and I will do anything necessary to ensure her continued joy and happiness.

Everyone kept asking me, right up to moments before the ceremony, whether I was nervous or getting cold feet. All I could say was no, simply because there was no reason to be. We were already basically at that point in our relationship, and going to the temple was just to formally officialize it. So what reason had I to be nervous? It was, and is, so completely natural to be with her... I am a happy man.

One Chance

In a very short time, I am to be married for time and all eternity, according to the customs of my religion.

I've also been playing One Chance, which the creator describes as follows:

One Chance is a game about choices and dealing with them.
Scientist John Pilgrim and his team have accidently created a pathogen that is killing all living cells on Earth.
In the last 6 remaining in-game days on Earth, the player must make choices about how to spend his last moments. Will he spend time with his family, work on a cure or go nuts?

As I see it, it is in essence a game about consequences. There is an auto-save feature that uses Flash Player's automatic storage feature to make choices permanent. The player is doomed to failure, because of the nature of the choices ahead of him: save humanity from certain death, show your family that you love them, escape the horrifying trouble facing you. Any of those are acceptable courses, but in all of them you lose. Not necessarily everything, but you lose at least one important thing no matter what you choose. Save humanity, lose your family. Show your family how important they are, only to allow them to die in the end. The game is highly fatalistic, to say the least.

But at the same time... it rings true.

"You have one chance."

I stand at the edge of the greatest moment of my life. I have one chance.

I'm taking the only path that wins.

 

I am choosing to be with Melody forever. That is my chance. That is my victory, and my chosen fate.

It is nearly time for forever to begin.

Anger

I've discovered that anger -- real anger -- is a very rare emotion for me. Specifically, it's something that has only cropped up twice in my specific memory (I believe I've had a precedent for this set during the year I was on Ritalin, though I'm not certain... not fun days, those). The first was some two months ago, perhaps. I'm not sure of the exact timing, and I don't want to be. I feel anger very deeply, when it comes along... mostly I cope with difficulty via depression or sadness, but very rarely I'll feel anger as the response. This first time, I felt real anger towards my father. I felt (and I stand by this in retrospect) he maligned both me (acceptable; I already think of myself as plenty of a screwup where his expectations are concerned) and Melody (not acceptable; his claims were completely one-sided and biased against her, for no reason I could nor can discern, and essentially painted her as some kind of irresponsible vagrant who would just fail at any and every endeavor).

When I went to speak with him about an unrelated but already sensitive and emotionally raw concern, I heard him speaking with my mother about my and Melody's future together. I was already hurt and having difficulty, but hearing what he said about her was... It was too much. I trembled with pain and anger and rage and possibly even hatred (though I don't know if it's fair of me to go so far as to say that) and walked, or thudded rather, down the stairs to speak with him. I warned him as best I could with my voice barely in control that I wasn't thinking clearly, because I wasn't and I knew it, and then did my best to express my concerns and emotional injuries in a fair way. I don't think I did all that well, but at the same time I cannot imagine a situation where his response to my words was justified. He took a few moments in shock that I would stand up to him in the specific way that I did, and then wasted no time once he'd collected himself in just utterly ripping me apart. He tore into me like I've never seen nor experienced, and the very first thing he said was "Where in the h*** do you get the balls to talk to me like that?" So that gives you an idea of how bad it was. I just stood and took it as long as I could, then advised him in a decreasingly stable voice that I wouldn't listen to him speak to me that way any longer, and left.

And boy, did I leave. I stormed up the stairs and out of the door, not even sparing Melody a look, simply because I couldn't handle the possibility of my fury hurting her. I went outside, walked to the tree in our parkway, and sat down to try and avoid just leaving -- after all, if I just took off in an arbitrary direction, Melody wouldn't have known where I was and might have been hurt by the worry over my safety. Yes, I was concerned about that at the time. It took me most of the rest of the night to calm down even to the point of functioning at all, and the entire rest of the week to actually speak to my dad again. I still haven't really forgiven him for that fully, partly because on some level I don't think I really believe he's sorry for it. Mostly because there are some things I just am not yet able to forgive, no matter how little good it does me to keep it that way.

The second time I referred to, and I suppose the one I'd prefer talking about less, was tonight. And all of the past day.

This time I didn't do anything dumb and speak up about it, because this time I had the sense to realize the consequences of speaking my mind before I actually did it for once. I'm sure this is going to wind up just eating me up all the more over time if it isn't handled, but at the same time I know I couldn't have handled the situation properly if I had spoken when it really should have been said.

I guess part of the problem is that I just don't know any real ways of coping with this yet. I just keep taking it for granted that it just never happens and acting on that, because other than those two instances, it never has, to my recollection at least. The fact is, this is really scaring me, that I am capable of feeling this, and all the more because I don't know how to take the edge off it enough to deal with the problem without causing very serious harm.

This seems as though it may require some growth. How unfortunate.

Food

I've been eating poorly of late. Specifically, today I have had several Oreos (breakfast), a bowl of noodles from Noodles & Company (lunch), and one and a half shortbread cookies (dinner). And though my pre-work meals tend to be a little better, today was only mildly uncomfortable due to how accustomed I am to this kind of diet.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?