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As my wedding date draws closer (how did it go from a year to 2 months left?), I’m beginning to feel the significance of this change in my life. And believe me, it’s not about a wedding. A wedding is just a great excuse to get our closest together for a party with 5-minute vows (at most!) thrown in.

It’s made me realise that I’m standing fairly alone in this life shift. My best friends and sister experienced all this more than 10 years ago. They all had weddings within three years of each other, their kids are the same age and through it all, I happily dated and had a great single life. They discussed bridesmaid dresses, wedding flowers, morning sickness, birthing scars, breast vs bottle feeding and now, they talk about exams and advanced school placement.

I always seem to have been one step ahead, behind, but rarely beside the people in my life. And now, I make wedding plans alone because nobody I know is in the same boat. But like I said, a wedding is just a day.

As a freelancer who works from home and prefers to keep the number of clients to a minimum, I will be finding myself with a vast amount of “downtime” once I get married and move in with my soon-to-be husband. The friends I had who were “housewives”, have now had their children, grown their children and are back to work, 10 years later. I’m also 39 years old, with what I suspect to be a fairly dusty uterus.

So where does this leave me at this stage, where I want to relax and enjoy taking care of my man and the marriage but not get unbelievably bored out of my mind?

Here are possible, mostly bad, ideas:

START A FOOD BLOG

Come on. Every chick does it. Plus I can actually cook and bake. Minus the complete saturation of the food blogging world, I essentially eat the same damn thing every day and frankly, that would not be the spice of life.

BUG THE HELL OUT OF MY MAN

When I met my betrothed, the market he works in was in a somewhat slump so he had a lot of time to chat and essentially woo me. Now, things have changed (good for him, I know) but this means that he actually works at work and the code for me to shut up is “I have some stuff to settle here…”. I do realise this tactic is not sustainable or attractive so I’ll find something else to do.

ACTUALLY GO BACK TO WORK

Hahaha, ok next.

PAINT

I actually used to love to paint – mostly abstract, emotive, monochromatic pieces and I’m going to be starting with a feature piece for the new apartment. There’s still only so many walls one can fit a canvas on – but it normally takes me a week or two to actually complete a piece.

FIND NEW FRIENDS

Yeah, this is going to be easy. Trying to make new friends past the age of 25 is a damn near impossibility unless there’s some kind of Craigslist group of almost-40 women about to get married. If anything, I’m dropping them like flies.

Or… all of the above!

So, this is something that surprises a lot of people – my boyfriend and I don’t officially live together. We’ve been dating for 3 years and engaged for 6 months but I’ve made the deliberate decision to not move in with him until we are married. So if he hadn’t proposed, we would have been one of those elderly couples who do lunch visits (which actually sounds quite lovely).

I decided that I would only move in once we get married because I wanted the wedding to have a wider significance attached to it – not just a ceremony but actually go through the old-fashioned notion of having an actual next step to climb together, with butterflies, rediscovery and a fresh world of things to argue about!

Note: This is no judgement to anyone who’ve made any life choices different to mine. Live your life, I don’t give a shit.

Here are the wonderful things I have to look forward to!

Living With a Boy

Boys, in general, are gross. While on the record, I have nothing but wonderful things to say about the man I’m affianced to (for e.g.: he’s never left the toilet seat up), he loves leaving dishes to “soak”. He almost never remembers to water the plants (about 10 have died to date). He leaves evidence of the trimming of his masterful beard about the sink. And he never adjusts the towels to line up – yes, I know it’s all very Sleeping With The Enemy, but seriously, who doesn’t line up their towels.

Remote Control

I’m obsessed with all of the Real Housewives shows, and yes, E! shows too – you can judge me all you want, I legit love those shows more than your opinion. I also watch a healthy balance of quality TV and you know what, unless you’ve watched a solid season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, don’t come for me. However, when do I get to watch these shows when we live together? How will he get to watch House of Cards (I refuse to watch it because I cannot handle that much breaking of the fourth wall)? Do I have to wait for him to get home to watch Game of Thrones (never gonna happen, sorry). Maybe I can convert him with my love for Erika Girardi.

Fight, No Flight

Right now, arguing with him, is actually fairly painless. This is because we have own safe spaces, we don’t have to sort everything out immediately and the silent treatment is a lot easier with some distance. So, this means once I move in, we’ll have to argue like all other couples – passive-aggressively over text during the day and face-to-face that evening. That sounds exhausting. And no, I don’t believe in that “don’t go to bed angry” nonsense.

The Mystery of Mystery

I’m very proud of the fact, that after 3 years, I’ve maintained some semblance of mystery of the female (or at least, I’d like to think that…). My clothes hang in a separate room, we’ve never used the bathroom in front of each other (and that would not be changing), heck, I barely walk around naked (I’d like to think this maintains the illusion of what, I don’t know…). However, there’s only so much one can keep under wraps when you’re living together – debilitating cramps, midnight snacking, face masks, the amount of hair maintenance that I require…

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Wish us luck!