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.