Post-Wedding Depression...

Well, here we are, on Sunday night and I do think my family and I are suffering from post-wedding depression! When I say family, I mean my Mom and Dad and my sister Jennie and I. Depression may be a harsh word, but I think the four of us have cried enough tears today to fill a bath-tub! The wedding was a wonderful, beautiful day that went off without a hitch. It was absolutely perfect, everything we hoped and prayed it would be...but there's something about the reality of what a wedding actually means. Something about celebrating all week, then coming home to a quiet house and an empty room, knowing life just took a drastic turn and would never be the same again. The party is over, the relatives are gone, the newlyweds have said good-bye, and here we are. We developed pictures, re-lived the wedding moment by moment and then cried because Stacie is married and leaving us! We are of course thrilled that she's happy and we could not love her new husband more, but we're sad that another chapter is over and "our" Stacie is leaving us to move to North Carolina with "him!" I don't know why I'm so emotional about this today. I didn't cry a single tear all week, but I'm just like my mom. We hold ourselves together for everybody else and then when everything is over, we fall apart. Today I've fallen apart multiple times!

I left my parents' house this afternoon, with my Dad golfing and my Mom and sister crying. I told my Mom to go do something, to keep herself busy so she wouldn't notice how deafening the silence was in our house. She called me later and said my sister and her boyfriend were taking her to Shrek...that seemed like a good idea. I drove back home, composed and unbelievably tired. I was doing just fine until I turned onto my street and suddenly my radio came on to Carole King's "You're so Far Away!" Can you believe that? Then I got home and saw Travis, and I haven't stopped crying all night! I'm sure this will pass as we all get back to our routines, but there is something about days like today. Something that makes me long for Heaven...days with no tears, no sadness, no feeling "so far away!" Stacie isn't my daughter, she's my sister; but watching her get married made me feel like a parent this weekend. I'm proud of her, excited about her future and thankful she married such a wonderful guy...but as I told my Mom today, when Jennie gets married, we all need to book a vacation immediately after the wedding, so that we're too distracted to be sad! Someone remind me of that, ok? I have a million wonderful pictures to post and I will get them online as soon as possible, but for now...here's to kleenex with lotion in it!