life with this guy

this fantastic portrait was taken by one of the Don't Give Up Project photographers

I've been living in the same town as my fiance for 20 days now. The transition been mostly wonderful and a little bit hard. The hard part was largely due to me packing out my first week with camp and then going right back to Kansas City for a wedding. On the night after I got back to Wheaton, Tim's shirt was soaking up my tears as I stressed about not having enough time to spend with him and plan our wedding. My fault, I know. I just really needed to do all that stuff before settling into his routine.
We've both been a lot more cheerful and optimistic this last week. Everyday, I go to his house and we simultaneously work on his business and plan our wedding and future life together. This is usually a seamless process, except when I accidentally make him work for 5 hours on a Sunday. Then I find him pulling me out the door by the wrist, insisting I leave the emails and airplane tickets and brochure layouts for another time so we can enjoy the sun while it's still shining.
I really love learning his quirks. The guy eats breakfast at noon, lunch at 4pm, and dinner at 8pm. I'm still perplexed about what to do with that schedule.
He loves awkward people the most. Especially new ones.
He is so generous.  I feel reproached by my own fear-driven attitudes of self-preservation every time I see him open up his attention, time, and possessions to those around him.
His open heart is easily touched by others, but never swayed in any direction other than the path he was already walking before they came along. That impresses me to no end.
He teaches me new things everyday, like how important it is to linger over a cup of good coffee in the morning before starting to work, and go for a swim in the evening before it gets dark. He says it's not healthy to stay inside when it's summer.
He is a master Googler.  Whenever he discovers something that he doesn't already know, he researches it until he understands it; like which weight of paper to use for our wedding invitations (that he designed) or what anodizing does to pots and pans (and whether or not we should register for them).
I teach him new things too, like how to shop for healthy groceries and what a table runner is.
He has the best magazine subscriptions. Always marry someone who comes with good reading material.

We're having so much fun being together every day.
We're doing everything we can to prepare for marriage. So many people have warned us that it is hard, so much harder than we could possibly know from the outset. I keep waiting for a hidden pitfall to take us by surprise, so we have frank and honest conversations about our hopes and expectations, trying to communicate them to each other and find the deeper need and history that created them in the first place.
My pessimistic side is still waiting for some marriage Boogey Man to jump out at me and burst my happy bubble. But when I search our story and ourselves for that ruiner, all I find is the man I love sitting in front of me watching me chew on my lip in deep thought, and he's smiling for the simple joy of being in the same room as me even though I worry about things I don't know and can't control.
Wherever the pain is, it's not here yet, so I'll stop looking for it.
We are merry and almost married.