Here's the deal about me

If anyone may even think that getting married isn't responsible because I'm young, let me explain something to you.

Just in 2013 I lived away from home in a city I hated, my parents got divorced, I was sued for something completely ridiculous, I got engaged, my Father passed away, and I booked a wedding date for 4 months from now, which everyone says is an impossible amount of time to plan a wedding in.

I've been through literally everything. Substance abusing parent? Yeah, it's most likely what my Dad died from. Divorced parents AND a deceased one? Within months from each other. Being sued at age 20? Yep.

And guess what? I'm so incredibly excited for my wedding. I deserve this so much. For everything I've dealt with, I deserve a husband to take care of me.

Regarding denial and it's effects, and a word of love for my Father

Why denial is so harmful, a word of caution.

I’ve lived with my Dad my entire life. My mom has lived with him for the past 25 years. We’ve seen it all. We’ve seen the overdoses, the accidents, everything. We’ve prepared for his passing for years. My Dad’s family however, his parents and sisters, have been in utter denial about his problems. When asked to help in getting him to rehab, they ignored us. When my Mom pleaded with them to go visit him and check on him, urging them that he shouldn’t be living alone, they refused.

Now my Dad has passed on. And it’s taken me less than 3 days to accept that. Like I said, I’ve been preparing forever. But the people who were so unwilling to help, because they believed that their own problems were much greater? They are devastated. How did this happen? In shock. Utter disbelief. And we’ve been telling them all along.

I mean, I’m grateful to my Dad. If he had to die this early, then at least he prepared me well. I made my peace with him. He knows that I love him. If he didn’t know when he died, then he knows after me asking God several times to tell him.

When people say that they have a problem, or when others say that someone has a problem, believe it. Don’t ignore it because it’s too difficult to think about. Don’t ignore it because you don’t think it matters. It may save their lives, and it may save yours from being in crippling disbelief when something inevitable happens.

I love you so much Dad. You’ve done a lot of stuff that I had a hard time with, but your heart was always in the right place. Even if it took a divorce to get you to come to terms with some things, I’m so grateful that you did. In my mind, making that peace was what allowed you to move on.

I’m so sorry that you couldn’t be at my wedding in person. But I know you’ll still be there. Max did really want to ask you for my hand, things just got in the way. But I know that you loved him like your own son, and that you would have done anything for us to be happy and taken care of. And you did. We’re going to be able to afford the most beautiful wedding ever.

I struggled for a long time with meaning the words “I love you". And now I wish that you could hear them a million more times. I really really do love you. Thank you for becoming the Father I always wanted, even if it was only for a few months.

 -Holly

Regarding the dreams I have most often

My dreams have become increasingly disturbing to me. Because they have been continuous for years. I don't put a lot of stock into dream meanings, but when you've had the same kinds of dreams for essentially your whole life, I'm starting to wonder about my subconscious.

The first kind involves missing something important. Either by oversleeping, or just forgetting about it entirely until the next day, or until it's too late to do anything about it. And then I'm just really upset at myself and try everything to get where I'm supposed to go and I can't no matter what. A lot of times I miss Halloween for some reason. Other times I've missed a vacation that was planned, or my birthday. I have a feeling I'm going to start having dreams about missing my own wedding.

The second kind is a lot more disturbing. It involves some global tragedy happening where the fate of the world is at stake. Like aliens invading, or a giant monster, or any other number of terrifying things. And instead of being awesome and helping the world, I essentially just hide and pray continually that I will live, bargaining with God for my life.

I'm sure the first one has to do with my intense fear of disappointment. Of being excited for anything on a small or large scale and then having it not work out. I'm a control freak. Things out of my control that involve my own life make me incredibly anxious and nervous. I fixate on them.

The second I can only guess has to do with the fact that although I have a very large amount of faith in the church and the Plan of Salvation, I don't want to die. I'm really afraid of death. Because life is supposed to be a test, that determines eternity. And so far I've failed in a myriad of ways. And the idea that I could die at any given time, fully in my sins with no chance of truly repenting, is just something that I can't think about without losing my mind. And now that I have Max, all I want is to be with him for all eternity. And I want to work towards that goal so badly, and we are trying, but there's a lot that I've done seriously wrong.
I guess my subconscious is just giving me a friendly reminder of everything wrong with me.

And on that note, maybe that's why I put so much stock into making things perfect. Into meticulously fixing old college work that everyone else has thrown away, into making my journals beautiful by fixing any mistake with white-out. Maybe it's because it's something I can control. Maybe because I pretend that I'll live forever and have these fond memories to look back on at any given moment. Fond memories of something I did that was perfect. Unlike the rest of my life.

But the saddest part is, even when I put hours of my time into fixing these things, they're never good enough for me.

Reagarding sexism towards women, and how it's also sexism towards men

Let’s start with rape culture. The idea that women are responsible for their own rapes because of how they dress/ act/ where they are at a certain time is disgusting, and obviously ridiculous.

On the surface, it’s completely sexist towards women. But what’s it covering up? That men are incapable of controlling their own actions, and are no more intelligent, or able to make rational decisions than animals. Huh.

Let’s move on to that Kraft ad, and how it’s so controversial. If you aren’t familiar with it, Kraft has an ad that pictures a man naked except for a piece of a tablecloth covering his genitals. And people are up in arms about how risque it is. It’s weird, because media has been using naked women with only their nipples and parts of their genitals covered with their hands or a tiny piece of fabric to sell products for decades. Has there ever been a big fuss about that? Not really.

On the surface, completely sexist towards women. But what’s the deeper truth behind the controversy? That people as a whole are so disgusted with naked men that they can’t bear to see them shown on television commercials. That a naked man is a danger and threat to their children and home, but naked women are exempt. Further than that, men in Speedos are generally “gross", but women in bikinis are celebrated. Women’s breasts are shown in PG-13 movies, but male nudity is always NC-17.

And lastly, the concept of virginity in cultures where virginity is a key factor in whether or not a woman is considered “marriageable". If a woman is a virgin, she’s good. But if a woman has been touched by another man, she is considered “tainted" and not fit for marriage. Why is she tainted? Because something dirty touched her. I mean come on.

I think guys are great. I’m engaged to a great one. And anything in culture that even hints at the fact that his gender is incapable of making decisions above that of an animal’s, disgusting, or shameful really upsets me. Girls, it should upset you too. And men, it should really upset you. You’re not even being openly discriminated against, it’s all underneath the surface.

Regarding that weird dream I had involving Sherlock Holmes and a bunch of other crap

I tend to have dreams about being romantically involved with fictional characters, or celebrities/ friends/ ex-boyfriends who are disguised as fictional characters , but Max is usually either around or I'm still engaged to him (or at least with him) in the back of my mind, and that's nice. Like last week I had a dream that NPH proposed to me and I turned him down because I loved Max. And this was after Nikelson who was a giant slug monster also tried to propose to me, but I'd like to pretend that that didn't happen.

I love my dreams. I stay asleep so long because of them. Actually, in my dream last night, Sherlock Holmes and I were explaining dreams to another girl, in which he used this projector to simulate how much more real things became in various levels of dreaming. And I told the girl that I liked to sleep in late because once you wake up and then go back to sleep, you have more dreams that you can remember. Even in my dreams I'm lazy and sleep way too long.

And then I teased Sherlock for forgetting to pack a blanket, but he wasn't really Sherlock Holmes at that point, he was Sherlock as one of my exes, and then we went in a time machine that he built back to the Classical Era somewhere in Europe, but then Sherlock wasn't even around anymore and I was just with 2 other women that I don't know at all. I knew who they were there though...

Something about people who posed as mannequins, something about experiencing the Classical Era in a huge courtyard in front of a mansion which I guess was City Hall or something where a man who was literally Mr. Burns from the Simpsons was saying something and knew who we were and we had to hide/ run away from him. And then it was only me and one other girl, and we were sword fighting through crowds of people and soldiers to get back to our time machine area, and on the way Nick was there and we waved at each other... And I had a conversation with the girl about "Max and I swordfight all the time, so this is easy. And I'm sure you and Sherlock do too." Psh girl stole Sherlock somehow.

And then we got there but had no more time machine crystals, but this random man gave us some and we got back just in time to escape the people chasing us. And then something happened and we went back to the courtyard this time with Sherlock I think, and I asked something about the blonde girl with the pointy nose (who was a mannequin earlier on) and Sherlock said something about "Well she's my niece" so I actually think that the girl who I thought stole Sherlock was really his niece?

And then once we got to the courtyard, the evil Mr. Burns guy passed a law about something that everyone booed (which I can only assume is linked to the modern events of gay marriage/ abortion bills being heavily debated) and then all these people got up, who were all dressed in various flotation devices and swimsuits, and started chanting something about how they opposed was had just happened, got into this giant river that wound throughout the city, and just swam around the river dressed up as seahorses and unicorns. One girl had a motorized propeller under her dragon tail? I zoomed in on it in the dream, so it must have been important.

Somehow I got home, and everyone was just in bed sleeping naked. I have no idea who they were though. I just go home and everyone's sleeping naked? There was one guy that I was all happy about seeing, but I don't know who he was. Was he Max? I think he was white. I don't think he was anyone. I think he was some generic white man.

I think there was another dream, but I can't remember if it was connected to this one. It was something about my old high school friend Lucas giving away these new music devices which were just called "P". And he asked if I wanted one for free because we were either in a band together, or had designed them, but I said they were stupid looking (so I hope I didn't design them) so I didn't want one.

And then everyone threw a huge party in my bedroom, and Lucas ended up giving the last one to this Genevieve (who was his in real life his girlfriend in high school for years), and I was really jealous. Because suddenly I wanted a "P". And then this other jerk Chris Conway was like "Well yeah, she's prettier than you." And I ran back in the room and demanded a "P" but instead everyone was packing everything up and then Sherlock Holmes was there building a time machine?

I think that's what happened. But somewhere along the lines Alex was there, or maybe I just found a picture of Alex? I don't know. All I know is that when Sherlock was there he was RDJ Sherlock and he was hot. Except when we first built the time machine and got in it, he was Benedict Cumberbatch. Actually he might have been a mix the whole time.

Regarding my ENGAGEMENT

Sunday night.

Max comes home from "getting the rest of the stuff in his old apartment" and proceeds to make dinner, while I am told to stay in the bedroom, and not peek. So I stayed nicely in my room, knowing what was coming, but not knowing how I would react. I was playing Candy Crush on my laptop.

"Baby, you can come out now!" I jokingly yelled "Can I finish my game first?" But Max didn't hear me (which I'm glad of). He had put a blanket over the shutter doors so I couldn't look through the cracks. So I took off the blankets and opened the doors.

Leading from the doors to Max was a trail of rose petals which went through to the living room to the dining room area where Max was standing. He had put on a sweater and black blazer and was standing next to our dining room table, which had candles lit in candle holders, a bouquet in the middle, and dinner set up.

I just cried the whole time.

I walked to him and he told me this wonderful and adorably rehearsed speech about our lives, and how we were able to still have fun even when doing something hard like moving everything into a new place. He said that we had already taken one step in our lives by getting an apartment together, and he wanted to start another journey which began with the question "Will you marry me?"

Like I said, I just cried. I didn't even know if I had said "Yes" or just made a sound.

He put on my ring, and the wedding band that went with it, because he wanted to see how it looked. The little sass remembered that I had said I wanted a bridal set. And then after lots of hugs and kisses, Max said to smile for the camera, which he had set up to record the whole thing. And then I got all embarrassed and went to turn it off. But he said "She said yes!" into the camera, and I started laughing. So the video ends nicely.

Oh, and the whole time "If It's the Beaches" was playing in the background. Because something about the lines "If it's the beaches sands you want then you will have them, if it's the mountains rolling rivers you will have them." and "I will rearrange my plans and change for you." kind of really mean a lot for me. I've rearranged a lot of my life to be with the man I love more than anything. And I really believe that he'd give me the mountains rolling rivers if he could.

And then we ate dinner. I nabbed a good man. Filet mignon, biscuits, baked potatoes, and salad. The only thing he forgot was the cups for water, which he said he forgot from being nervous. I asked him why he was nervous since he knew I'd say yes, and he said he just wanted to make everything perfect and memorable and was worried about messing something up. (He didn't.)

He told me stories about ring shopping with his family, and how he knew that my ring was the ring when he saw it. And I swear, I just cried the entire time.

We tried to take some pictures, but my make-up was running down my face, and I look kind of silly. I do have some that I took on my phone of some of the things that he set up. Here's my ring:

Here's the rose petal trail leading to the table:

Here's me crying next to the table:

Here's the table set up (after we had let the candles burn down). Max even put rose petals on the chairs and table around the food.

And this is what the kitchen looked like after dinner and preparing everything. Max was saying how you never see the clean-up part of the proposal in movies or anything.

And here's us! (I edited my smudged make-up out of the picture hahaha)

Max and Holly, engaged June 23, 2013

Regarding the day I figured everything out

It's a sad day when you realize that your parents aren't the shining beacons of knowledge and life experience that you thought they were. It's even more sad when your one parent was such a monumental disappointment, that your other parent became God to you. And then once you grow up, live on your own, and come back home, you realize that your God parent is just as screwed up as the other one.

My Mother is the most pessimistic and disheartening person I have ever met, besides her brother. Her attitude is that everything bad that happens is a conspiracy towards her alone. That no bad happens to others, and that in any situation where something bad can happen, it will. And my whole life I was scolded for complaining about this or that because "I had it so good." Yeah, I do. But I was a little kid, and I wanted a video game system. Hey Mom, you own your own house after a divorce. A house that's paid off, a house that is entirely yours to live in or sell at a pretty good chunk of money. And even with all of that, you're jealous of me getting married because I get to leave? Newsflash: Just because you're stuck in the Simi Valley black hole, doesn't mean you can't leave if you really wanted to.

My whole life I've been her only outlet to complain to about my father, about her parents, about money, about etc. And now I finally opened my eyes to the fact that really, this situation isn't any different from anyone else's. Men are bad husbands all the time. Men are bad Fathers all the time. Why are we so different? Oh right, because we're a part of the Church where everything is supposed to be perfect and harmonious and lovely, and then when real life comes and it's not, it's all a big conspiracy theory towards you alone.

Max's family is incredible. Max's family actually treats him like an adult, and is supportive of his decisions. My Mom still uses the "You're the child" card, and literally stormed out of the house when I told her that I knew more about drug users than she did. Bigger Newsflash: I have experienced so much more than you have, simply because I have allowed myself to. You admit to growing up "under a rock", and yet you're offended when I say that I know more about drug users, homosexuals, and *gasp* people who have sex before marriage than you do? (My Mom still thinks that people with tattoos are criminals.)

I really cannot live here for much longer. This place that used to be so comforting when I was away at school in a place I hated, has become poison. Through the divorce, my Mom had been so worried about "having a place for me to come home to", never thinking that maybe I didn't want to come home for an indefinite amount of time. My fiance has an apartment, that he's living in alone. An apartment that I want desperately to be in with him as we plan our wedding.

My Mom's response to my half-joking attempt at breaking the news about moving in with Max? "Oh you want to go live in sin?" And today she gave me a talk about "Certain marital activities" Because God forbid that I can make my own decisions and have to make a choice that will ultimately lead to a happy marriage and life? Or maybe it would just kill you to have your parents find out that I'm actually a heretic. Because regardless of every good decision I've made in my life, and the kind of person that I am, moving in with Max would entirely negate everything and make me evil.

So what do I do? I'm stuck here until I can get up the nerve to say "Hey everyone who loves me and thinks so highly of me, I'm an adult, so I'm making this decision which will ostracize me from everyone." (This is just one half of my family, too. My other half of the family already hates me for doing absolutely nothing.) My other option is to live in misery and try to plan a wedding with my fiance 2 hours away, and having to continuously deal with my Mom being crazy and my Dad being legitimately insane.