4 months of exponential

The date is November 12, it is now July 19.

Stress has locked my stomach into a permanent knot, and I know it's winding the woman I love into great big triple-reef-knots-with-loops too. I don't know what I'm going to write here, but it will be a diary, as honest as I can bear to make it, as far as I dare to risk it.

The process has been a microcosm of everything big in my life. It coincides with my search for meaning in my career, at its most acute, because I'm moving jobs and potentially changing direction altogether after 5 years of my profession. As we argue about finances I'm fighting to stay above water financially. At times I'm fighting not to lose the one thing that this is meant to be about- she and I.

The guest lists and arguments about who does what and when have dragged both of us headlong into the darkest corners of our family histories. My family will meet my birth family. For the first time. My beloved's tough relationship with her father and stepmother will follow a tortuous path to either a new, higher level of understanding or something like estrangement.

My grasp on sanity will feel, morning after morning, like I'm holding a string attached to a large helium balloon in a southerly gale and my fingers are slicked with olive oil.

Almost every day at some point I regret not eloping, and one day soon I'll tell you dear reader about the beautiful vision I had for the two of us, alone, making promises that no-one except us really has any right to witness. It involved a clifftop, a tropical island, a plunge pool covered with flowers, no clothes at all and a couple of glasses of Billecarte-Salmon.

But now it is as it is, and I'm determined that my beautiful bride will have a day to remember for as many of the right reasons as I can muster, that we stay sane, and come through happier together than ever.

Your patient ear and wise advice will be appreciated. Wish us luck...