Blog 1: Draft

After being with someone for 9 years, you kind of know it's coming sooner or later but no one can prepare you for the feeling that overcomes you when it actually happens — a literal emotional overload. You feel every emotion all at once: 

Excited Terrified Enamored Stunned Grateful Embarrassed Guilty 

Then the day arrives; the proposal. You're asked a question that requires an answer and you deliver either a "yes" or a "no." After delivering your answer, the rest of the day becomes mushed together and you're in a strange haze, not quite believing the reality of such a monumental moment in your life (at least for me). 

When night came around I couldn't sleep a wink, even with being painfully sleep deprived from the night before. So I turned on my sound machine with red light, popped a melatonin, drank a sleepy time tea, took magnesium, and ate a CBD gummy. And nothing. So I decided to get up and practice breathing techniques while walking downstairs for a glass of water. 

To my surprise, I found my dad walking towards me in the pitch blackness. To put it lightly, he scared the living shit out of me, which I told him after screaming. He laughed and gave me a strong hug along with a bunch of kisses on my cheeks, saying playfully, "how are you going to leave the house when you get scared like that?" At that moment, part of my heart broke. The part that relies heavily on the comfort and protection of my dad. The part that looks to my him as the head of my household, the resolver, the _________-. It made me sad to think that this piece of my life was hanging by the thinnest of thread.

 For context, I love my parents in a way that is inexplicable. Both in their complex and individual ways. They’re my favorite people and to live without them after 28 years of never leaving their side sounds scary as all hell. 

I’m terrified as much as I am tremendously excited. 

So here we both were (my dad and I) standing in the dimly lit kitchen, both awake and both restless (nothing new for the two of us), as he turns to me and says with a soft expression, "you should try to rest since it’s been a long day," while giving me another hug full of emotion. So I went upstairs and did what any 27-year-old girl who have never left her home or her cuban parents side would do and cried my freaking eyes out. 

To say that I HATE change is the understatement of the century. I am a creature of habit. 

I think the reality with every moment in our lives is that we simultaneous lose things and gain others. These gains and losses are not necessarily black and white. I will lose the role I've played as their little girl who looks to them for every thing in life; and naturally, our relationship will change and evolve into something more adult. My new protector and my new reliance will be my husband-to-be, Carlos. And I’m so ready and happy about that, but it doesn’t take away the fact that I do feel loss for the part of my life where I get to feel more like little girl versus their adult daughter who is now a wife. 

What I've come to terms with is that this is the time. And as my mom has always told me, "there is a time and place for everything." At the time I probably didn't understand this phrase fully, but I always took her words as gold. There is a time and place for me to be a child who relies heavily on her parents and there is a time and place for me to be a wife who relies healthily on my significant other as well as the marriage we will be building together. The family unit is now extended. And to say that you can be both a child and a wife is absolutely true. I will still be this little girl, but I will also be a spouse. Roles begin to shift into greater things with larger meanings. Priorities shift and life along with it. 

It IS our time as a couple. Some would say that it’s way past due, but I don’t feel that way. I feel as if Carlos and I are in the time of our lives where we have decided to make each other our lives and build something incredible together. And I have no single shred of doubt in my mind that we will. 

ITS just scary letting go of a version of yourself and the entanglements that came with her. 

So here it is. A messy entry of all of the questions concerns emotions and curiosities that come with such an intensely beautiful moment. 

And although all of these sentiments that are not 100% will not be easy to face and overcome, I know that I have each of my support systems to get me there. My beautiful incredible parents, my angel girl cat, my light in this life of a grandmother, and my legitimate other half and husband-to-be. 

I can deal with change and I’ll come out on the other said saying that I gained so much more than I thought I ever would. And that’s all we can ever ask for. 

with love + good health always, Nina