The Vow

On 16th July 2016, I got married to a wonderful man, Ifo, whom I've dated for 8 years. It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me and I swear I can never forget the solemnization moment and when he read his wedding vows. There were also some unforgettable moments that make me smile every time I think about them:

1. Waking up to text messages from my long distance friends wishing a "Happy Wedding Day".

2. All the flower girls and bridesmaid eating cupcakes while getting ready.

3. Stepping into my giant white dress, all the girls around me.

4. The silence, and the sound of my dress rustling against the floor as I approached Ifo for our first look. And how he smiled at me.

5. Scanning the crowd and feeling, in the most surreal way, buoyed by our friends and family.

6. Again, the wedding vows, which was my cue to cry.

7.  My veil slipping off as we made our way to the feast, delirious with joy, and Ifo catching the veil as it fell. The most perfect imperfection.

8. The biggest, best hug fest in the entire world as everyone came to congratulate us.

9. Slipping away with Ifo to take pictures, and the look of sheer amazement on his face as he whispered, "Alhamdulillah, finally..."

10. Cutting the chocolate cake coated with mint green fondant specially made by my sister.

11. Everybody's having fun with karaoke and some others were waiting turn to sing.

12.  My adorable nieces and nephews twirling across the dance floor, giddy and tired.

13. Friends and family dishing out all kinds of emotional, slurred, perfect "we love yous".

14. Hanging out with Ifo under the canopy while eating leftovers after everybody's leaving, feeling tired, happy and thankful.

And so...I just want to thank you all for your best wishes and your really, really sweet comments as I shared all our wedding photos and details on instagram, facebook and twitter these past few weeks. Special thanks to our families and friends for their continuous support and help to make the wedding as wonderful as it can be. And also special credits for these people:

Wedding suit and dress: Permaisuri Pengantin Boutique

Dais and hand bouquet: Normah Wedding Planner

Cake: Dinasha Bakery

Canopy and table set: Kris Canopy

Caterer: Kharisma Catering

Photographer: Mr. Ajib

Thanks so much everyone!

Annddd...last but not least, here's my vow:

Dear Ifo,

My best friend,

My brightest light,

My husband from this day forward,

You're the greatest, most magnificent man I've ever known.

You've taught me peace and charity, strength and integrity,

the beautiful bliss of life's most simple joys.

You've shown me what it means to be good and true,

what it's like to wake up each day with faith and hope and a fearless, grateful spirit.

I love you for so many reasons, but I love you most for your heart,

Your true and kind and open, compassionate heart.

Our love has always felt both incredible and inevitable,a miracle that's meant to be,

And my most cherished blessing is to know that I'm yours.

Today, surrounded by the ones we love,

I vow to honor, inspire, and respect you for the rest of our days.

I'm yours, my love, forever and always:

All that I am now and all that I'll ever be.

Arrival of the groom

The start of forever

It's such an honor to be his wife

A kiss

Mom

"Can't take my eyes off you"

My best friends

His best friends

Our moms

I'm honestly loving my dress

Inching Toward Love

Sometimes someone seems to be not quite falling in love, but tiptoeing toward something like it. Like everything is just happening so slowly, you know? Well it's making me feel like maybe it's just not right.

There's something to be said for the kind of love that comes quickly, abruptly, a fierce jolt that makes you stumble, do a double take, then race forward. It's exciting when that happens, and scary, and something about the fear and the thrill and the haste makes it seem inevitable. Destined, even.

Occasionally, that swift love holds onto its momentum. I've seen (and felt) that desperate, whirlwind sort of love shape into something that's lasting and evolving, but I've also seen (and felt) it lose its footing, the head unable to keep up with the heart. Or something.

I inched my way into love. When I met him, sure, there was an immediate connection, something easy and comfortable about it. But my stomach didn't drop in fear, and I didn't fall so quickly that I tripped and staggered. I just inched in the direction of love, letting it come into view in the distance while I slowly but surely watched the walls between us come down.

Truth is, I'm a put-it-all-out-there kind of girl. And he isn't that kind of guy. Of course, when you first meet him, it feels instantly like you know him, like what you see is what you get. He's easygoing and kind and level-headed in the way that can feel wonderfully simple, relatable, but he also keeps so many things close to the chest. He's the type to intrigue you, to hold back a bit, to let pieces of himself unfold and come to light over time. In all the ways that I'm obvious and open and up and down, he's careful and steady and balanced. He's sure. He knows what to share and what to keep as his own, so that weeks and months and even years into knowing him, I still find that he surprises me.

I eased into love because he eased into himself, letting me in bit by bit. For me it was a lesson in patience, because while fast happiness may feel fated, that lasting joy is worth waiting for.

When Dust Settles

Endings keep popping up in conversation lately. Stories of leaving, of finishing. Stories of conclusion. I for one have never been good with endings. I'm a beginnings person, someone who revels in the delight of change and enjoys navigating new territory. Endings startle and stun me, stop me right in my tracks. I never know how to negotiate the aftermath because I'm afraid to see the dust settle.

Looking back, I haven't allowed for many endings. I've managed to steer most of my experiences and relationships so that they land on a forever timeline, or at least something close to it. Come to think of it, some of the most heartbreaking endings have been leaving certain places. I knew as I left those places that my time there was over and I struggled, wrestling with that knowledge and doing my best to pretend it wasn't so. Even now they're the places that tend to fill my daydreams, absence makes the heart grow fonder, etc.

This is all to say that it's hard to close the back cover. With books I find myself clutching the final flimsy pages and re-reading them over and over again, wishing I could stay in the world just a little bit longer. More often than not, I'd rather balance along the edges of an ending, unsteady, than see the conclusion rise up to meet me. Isn't that sort of how it goes, though?

Well, I'm leaving home soon.

Save the Date

Hey, everyone! Ahh what a long hiatus. It feels good to finally write again. Well, the big day is just around the corner and I am currently a very busy, nervous and excited woman. 

Planning our wedding has come down to a lot of little details and decisions; programs, linens, cards, tablecloth colors, doorgifts. And all these choices, sure, they felt important. After all, it's one of the most significant days of our lives, we're standing at the brink of forever, etc. But still, nothing has been quite so special as preparing myself to be a good wife.

I'm also writing my vows, though I'm not gonna read it out loud on the day, it just feels right to write it. I know it's not a part of our tradition. But there's just something kind of magical about writing that promise, about narrowing your big, sweeping, expanse of a love for that person into just a few short sentences.

All along people have been saying some version of the same thing: "It will hit you. At some point in this process, all the love and the forever and the weight of this day will hit you."

And wouldn't you know it, I've been hit, by the words, of course, always by the words. The surprising part, though, is that I didn't feel their weight. I felt their lightness.

Annndd here is save-the-date card for you. Everyone is invited!

Dear Young Hearts

Dear young hearts,

Love is a weird thing, and as you grow older, it doesn't stop getting any weirder or more complex. The love you felt for friends and first loves in high school shifts to a different kind of love in college, which shifts again as you enter adulthood. And each time you fall in love, it'll be different, too. You are, after all, the only thing that stays the same in each relationship you enter, no matter how much you think you have a "type" or that you're doomed to repeat the same relationship over and over again. 

When you're in your 20s, though, there's a lot that flies up in the air all at once. You're juggling a job and debt and a social life and trying to figure out who you are, now more than ever, and some things feel like they slip through the cracks here and there. Relationships sometimes seem like more trouble than they're worth unless you're in them (and sometimes even then, on the bad days), but that doesn't mean that you won't fall in love. You can try, to avoid it, but it'll happen. You can't outrun falling in love.

And whatever the outcome, heartbreak or happiness, forever, or just that momentary second, it'll teach you something about yourself, and about what you do and don't want in your life. Because you need love, and you need it in multiple forms. But what does it mean to love, when you can barely juggle your bills and your student loans and everything else in between? And who do you choose to love? Do you even choose at all? (After all, sometimes it's the love that finds you.) But those are different questions for a different day. So here's the 5 people you'll fall in love with in your 20s.

1. A complete stranger. 

It'll be the cute guy with the perfect hair you see on the bus, or the girl whose carefully-edited Instagram lures you into thinking you really know who she is, or the sales rep who you swear always flirts with you when they make the rounds to your office. It could be anyone, someone whose coffee you accidentally grabbed for at the shop, someone who interacted with a tweet once, someone who you saw in a restaurant and imagined a whole future with in 5 seconds, only as long as you keep them at a distance. This is crucial. You might never see them again, or you might see them under the circumstances that you can't make a move to be something more. But you'll unload all your craziest fantasies onto them without their ever knowing, both because it's less of a burden for you to carry, all of these goals and no one to share them with, turns into all these goals with a make-believe someone else, and because it's less of a risk. You never have to put your heart on the line. You can love from afar. And even unreciprocated love is real. But it's not sustainable, and you'll have to give them back their stranger status eventually, even if you felt like you knew them inside and out. You never did. They were never yours to know. Your idea of them was the only thing you had a right to love. 

2. Someone who could have been.

This can happen frequently now that we live in a world where our memories are preserved forever online. You'll see someone's name pop up on Facebook, or in a throwback photo or at a reunion, and you'll wonder. What could have gone differently? What would you have to do differently to keep them in your life, to keep the relationship going, or to have a relationship at all? And when your 20s are a crazy whirlwind of ups and downs, it seems like a great escape to revert back to your past, and what was once familiar and safe. This is not where you grow, however. Sure, sometimes you realize someone's been under your nose the whole time, but not always. Life isn't a Hollywood romantic comedy, and often, people were left in your past for a reason. Playing a game of could-have-been is an endless free fall. See what lies ahead. You know what could have been, but you don't know yet what could be. And that surprise is magical. 

3. Someone who could give you everything.

You will fall in love with them in the abstract way, that you love the idea of who they are, of where they've been and what they've achieved, because you'll either want to follow in their footsteps, or glean off their success. It's natural to do the latter; in your 20s, you're still young and starry-eyed despite your crappy walk-up, and going on a date with your boyfriend with a Ferrari seems like the way to beat the system. But beyond the material, you'll also fall in love with a boss you really admire, or a mentor whose career you'd love to learn from, and you'll realize that falling in love is not always romantic. Sometimes, it's just fuel. Sometimes it helps remind you why you need to keep pushing to achieve your goals. Sometimes it's just a sign that the path you're on is the right one. (Just don't get inappropriately moon-eyed around your boss. That's weird.) 

4. Your best friend.

Your early adulthood is going to be cold and quiet and lonely at times, and you're going to wonder how it is that people meet other people, and you'll reach out and latch onto the few people who you already have in your life. You'll never want to let go, and you don't have to. Help each other move into crappy apartments and eat pizza on the floor before you unpack. Call each other and text each other and chat each other off the record and snapchat ugly faces and cling as tightly to one another as you possibly can. Learn what it's like to worry about another person so unconditionally that you can tell they're having a bad day just by the length of their texts. Have people wonder if you're actually in a real relationship, but know that this is the truest relationship either of you have ever been in (and that this is not a bad thing). We say best friends are forever in school, and we test these notions in college, but it's in your 20s that you learn the true depth of being in love with your best friend. 

5. Yourself.

At the very least, I really hope you do. Everyone deserves to know what it's like to know that someone loves them just as they are in that moment. It doesn't mean anything less, and sometimes, it even means more, if that person is you.