prayer to the tazmanian devil named brooke marie mehner slabbert, also known as my big sister.

one time brooke marie mehner slabbert and i decided to go running down a trail behind my backyard that i have dubbed "the pocahontas run." it is long, 12 miles to be exact. it involves running through four rivers, through forest brush, through mountain lion territory, and through some pretty snake-infested landscape. it has been the site of several embarrassing instances for me, including a time involving widsom teeth pulling, laxatives, and an ill-timed run. it is a brutal run, it can be a scary run, and also one of my favorites. i love to take one of my sisters along for the ride, all 12 miles of muddyness. this particular time brooke and i set off, with me promising we'd only go for a little while and then come back, banking on the foot in the door phenomenon i am well known for using every day of my life to get people to do what i want them to do.

so brooke and i set off. i was training, she was not. i thought i was bomb.com for outrunning her the entire way, not even breathing hard. she feared the mountain lions, i was queen of the forest. she was feeling hurt in her calves, my body was a temple. for someone who spent the majority of her life being asked why she was so much bigger-boned than her older sister, it was heaven.

finally we neared the end of the run, at which time there is an enormous hill. im pretty sure ive never run it. as we got there i slowed to a trot, then to a walk. i was dying. i couldnt breathe. i needed water and air and love and a foot massage. i pretended i was doing it for brooke: "ok we can slow down a bit brooke, i know you're tired."

as i plodded my way up the hill, i saw something in my peripheral vision. a tazmanian devil. a tornado of dirt smoke. nothing more than a blur, as it passed up me and whizzed up the hill like the little engine that could on speed. as i watched brooke's back retreat farther and farther up the hill, i was humbled. i was reminded that though i am the bigger sister height wise weight wise shoe size wise and fit into a kids size 16 when she was still a 10 even though I was two years younger, she will always be my big sister. she looks at those giant hills at the end of the pocahontas run, even after she has been wearied for miles, even after shes been running and running, and she dominates them. she kicks their trash. she tells them "i am a tazmanian devil, and i will defeat you." and she does.

when mountains come her way, she climbs them. when trials come pounding at her door, she pounds them back. she inspires me to stop walking, and keep running. she is the one who has paved the way for the rest of the clan of women that makes up my family. she went to high school first. she went to college first. she figured out who n sync was first, and called dibs on lance bass first. she discovered trl first. she got married first. now she is the best mother to elsie jane first, teaching the rest of us how to be, and how to keep on climbing. im glad i have her cloud of dust to follow, her 5'2'' frame pumping up those mountains like it aint no thing. shes always been there, running ahead of me, showing me the way, watching out for snakes and showing me how to give it your all to the very end, the faster woman, my big sister, my tazmanian devil.

happy birthday brookie, thanks for showing me who carson daly is, for showing me how to love those around me, for showing me how to face my fears and conquer them, and for continuing the legacy of beautiful mothers in our family.

prayer to the puppies. im sorry ive neglected you.

we mehners suffer from a disease known as perfectionism. it would not seem this way because i am most often seen in sweatpants living out of my car, my writing looks like hieroglyphics, and showering is an optional activity in my life. but underneath the dirty fingernails and careless persona lies a person that frets over A minuses, cries over b pluses, and will stand in payless shoe source for three and one half hours picking out a pair of fifteen dollar shoes until the lady says "you spent all this time in here and you only picked out one pair of shoes?" and after purchasing the shoes considers three times returning the shoes and getting the other pair and loses multiple minutes of sleep that night wondering if the 15 dollars was spent correctly. its a disease given to me by my perfectionist father glen bron, who irons his sheets and gave me a franklin planner at the age of 6 and gets a haircut approximately once a week even though he is 100 percent bald.

to sum up: i 1. think parting with money is like losing an eyeball unless it is being spent on taking me to india or education or a book or life-saving medication 2. i second guess every decision i have ever made and 3. i must know every single option available to me before i decide on one, which explains why i had 13 serious boyfriends and 7 not so serious boyfriends prior to deciding on an eternal boyfriend.

im sure you are wondering what this has to do with anything pertinent to your life, and it probably is not necessary to post on the internet. but let me tell you what perfectionist mehner personality adds up to: the worst wedding planner of all time. and this from a girl who never even thought about her wedding until she got engaged, at which time she was informed she should have been keeping a folder her whole life of wedding tidbits she liked so she could just refer back to it and think: my whole life i've wanted yellow and blue paisely bridesmaid dresses and a red velvet cake with white icing! no, i am in fact the exact opposite, the girl who never noticed what the bride's dress looked like, didn't even attend most people's weddings, and did not know that linens were an essential part of wedding decor. but all of a sudden i have been thrown into a universe of decision making from websites and vendors that tell you: we want to help make the MOST IMPORTANT day of your life EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT! like that is so helpful mr. vendor. thanks for informing me this is going to be the most important day out of the 7 billion days of life i live. no pressure. and thank you for letting me know you can give me exactly what i want, like its so easy to know what you want. and thank you for doing it all for the low low price of more money than i have spent the rest of my life combined, including college tuition and trips to the hospital.

anyway, the point of this post is not to vent, or disclose that i have spent the last 7 hours of my life looking at wedding blogs on the internet, an activity i never thought i would ever be engaged in. the point of this point is to say: its great to know that it doesnt matter. if i pick the wrong colors, if i see a cuter wedding later, if my dress doesnt fit me, if the food is gross, if my legs fall off so i cant dance the night away which is the only thing i know for definite i want at my reception, if everyone talks behind my back that my wedding sucked, it wont even matter, not even a little bit. and even though every caterer and vendor and dj in the entire world wants to pressure me into thinking this is the most important day of my life, i will not be pressured.

it is an important day. there will be other important ones. and it is not important because i will get the exact cake i want, or the exact bouquet, or whatever. it will be important because from this moment on i will get to have sleepovers with the boy that i love forever, and we will start our lives together, and make each other better and stronger and wipe away each others tears and hold each other up when life decides to beat us up. so social pressure, i laugh in your face. i will not be pressured into thinking every detail matters or that it "only happens once" so i should just go crazy and spend the budget of an entire third world country. i will also not have a panic attack every time i see the price tag. i will still fret over every decision and every dollar spent because its genetically engineered into my blood, but i will not let wedding advertisements trick me into thinking its all about me and wedding favors, and i will not let my guilty conscience manipulate me into thinking i am a bad person for spending money, and i will just let go. i will breathe. and my reception will be exactly what i want if it involves family and friends and dancing and smiles and happiness and love and good vibrations and all of the people who have helped me along this beaten path to this point in life, and most of all nicholas floyd cottrell and his little boy smile, because when i see that i wont even see the centerpieces or the chair covers. and there are millions of people all over the world dying of cancer and millions of children starving and hurting and puppies being kicked and they are a whole lot more important than what veil i wear, and im sorry that i have been thinking about that instead of the puppies, because i promise ive never been like this before. i hope they forgive me, because im going back to pre-wedding me starting here and now, the person who thought tulle was pronounced too-lay, and no amount of people telling me its "my day" and "all about me" can stop me, because im tired of feeling like a tornado inside and life is about being happy and good and not bridesmaid dresses.

sorry for rambling, but i had to remind myself.