* Waves hand as if to signal she is, indeed, not dead, but alive and, mostly, well *

While frantically waving the dialogue in her head goes something like:

“Hi! I’m over here! Right! here. No, a little to the left. A little bit more. Yes! Right there! There, I am!”

Before she (finally!) sits down to write the post that has been waiting (im)patiently in the wings for over two months, making her feel severely feel guilty on a bi-weekly basis (Has my vow of silence really been going strong since March? Wow. Maybe I should be a monk. Women aren’t monks, you say? Touché.), she writes and re-writes possible post titles in her head:

Wherein I Was Lost On A Tropical Island, Which Was Of Course Imaginary, And So, Naturally, Full Of Fresh Pineapple And Talking Monkeys.

Because March Was Secretly Designated “Let’s Take A Break Month. And, No, It’s Not You. It’s Me.” Oh, And April, Too. And May Was Just Drunk. A Lot. May Is Just Plain Irresponsible.

Exhibit A: What Happens When You Think You’re Getting Married June 23rd, But Then Situations Outside Of Your Control Dictate That Actually, You Are Getting Married Next April. As In, 2008. And Then After You Cry For A Bit, You Decide It’s For The Best, But, Still, You Feel Sort Of Writing Quiet, Like Someone Laid A Heavy Flannel Blanket Across Your Brain And Anything You Have To Say Has Gone To Sleep For Awhile, Because, Well, Sometimes Your Point Of View Needs A Nap, Too.

* Cue story I was afraid to write before today because we didn’t have our Plan B fully realized and activated, and also: I over-analyze everything, and the thought of writing a mass email scares me into a stupor, but still, PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW I told myself daily, and they are going to be wondering why they never received a wedding invitation, and throwing darts at pictures of me, and this is clearly getting out of hand because GREAT ODIN’S RAVEN WE JUST RECEIVED A GIFT IN THE MAIL so out-dated was our Target registry and clearly I AM GOING TO HADES for my lack of response-time. *

* About the time of mental breakdown also cue a very Mr. T-esque friend chiming in with a very loud and appreciated: “Kerri. WRITE SOMETHING. And also, and I don’t mean to be rude, but, um, NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR WEDDING. I mean, we want you to be HAPPY, but otherwise, we don’t care about the when and where and the color of linens you chose. I mean, sure we care when you care because we care about YOU, but not about YOUR wedding, and we are going to be good with it if you are no matter what. Kapeesh?” *

I definitely just paraphrased. And I’m pretty sure she has never said “Kapeesh.” But, otherwise, that was pretty much the overall point(s) made. And boy howdy! did I need to hear it. Seriously. Because, neurotic much? Yes, please.

OK, and because this End Of My Hiatus post is quickly turning into The Neverending Story, Part Three, here is a brief synopsis of unfolding events surrounding the decision to forego the June vow-taking, and instead wed in April 2008, in Alabama:

• Most likely never mentioned outright on this site, Chris and I are both Catholic.
• As such, we would like to be married in the Catholic Church, and as Chris was previously married, we had some red-tape to cut, some hoops through which to agilely jump. Paperwork was completed and filed, and then, after our date, church, priest, photographer, flowers, dress(es) and guest-list were chosen, we were not-so-promptly informed that we needed to allow a year from the date filed (we filed last November) to hear back on the decision, and that most likely June was now out of the question. Either way we would be able to be married by a priest of our choosing, but without the paperwork complete, filed, and on record, no marriage would be considered valid in the Church, and thus no marriage could be actually held, in the Church, both physically and metaphorically. The priest who was originally going to marry us told us the decision to make was now if we felt like gambling with our wedding date. Hint: The first and only time I visited a casino, I lost twenty dollars and was horrified. I proceeded to drink copious amounts of diet coke and never put another dime in a slot machine the rest of the time I was there.
• We decided we had no choice but to post-pone. A wedding in the Church was exactly what we both wanted. We also decided we wanted our priest, the priest that knew us both the best, and the one that was integral in both of our respective faith formations here, to marry us. So we settled on April of next year, with our new priest, and a new, smaller, more quaint church, and, beyond the peskiness of it all, we were doing OK with the overall change of plans.
• Cue our chosen priest being unexpectedly “reassigned” to a parish in another city. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth, so amazing is this man, and so heartbroken were we that he was leaving our parish, our city, and our zip code.
• While all of this initial wedding planning was occurring always was there the underlying goal of somehow, someway, physically transporting Chris’ family (his mother, his two brothers, and his niece) from Alabama to Washington State. The idea of a wedding without his support network standing by for him right alongside mine seemed both unfair and, frankly, a little sad. More and more, it looked to be both physically and financially impossible to fly them across the country. Without going into too much detail, to respect their privacy, suffice it to say his mom has health restrictions that prevent her from flying so far, and his brothers are both at places in their careers where significant leaves of absences are just out of the question.
• I suddenly realized I was being entirely selfish by assuming that an Alabama wedding was out of the realm of possibility, simply because all of my family lives here, and well, it’s my first wedding, and a whole bunch of other nonsensical reasoning that I’m mostly ashamed of, especially because I also suddenly remembered my parents initially offering to fly themselves and my babycarrotsister and her husband to Alabama so that we could have a small, intimate wedding there, where Chris’ family could all be present, too.
• I remembered “small and intimate” being the two words we both most readily used to describe our ideal wedding, and I thought: Has this been the answer the entire time? A small intimate ceremony in Alabama, where my family will be able to meet Chris’ family for the first and most likely only time, and where we will get to show babycarrot sister and Will the deep South, as neither of them have ever been, and where we can drink sweet tea to our heart’s content, and then hold a spunky reception complete with photographer and dress and endless amounts of embarrassing group dancing when we return, for all of our beloved family and friends here in the Pacific Northwest?
• And so, this past weekend, while fishing with my parents on their new party barge pontoon boat, it was finally and officially settled. We are getting married at this church, April 12th of next year. We are having a reception to end all receptions May 17th, 2008. You are all invited.

Speaking of invitations, I am looking for someone far more talented than I to make them for said reception. If you yourself are interested, or know of someone who might be, I would love, love, love to hear from you and/or them. This is definitely a paid gig, and Chris and I would love nothing more than for our invitations to have a web-like beginning, as you might remember, we ourselves had such a beginning. Please email me at kladish [at] gmail [dot] com.

I also really want to say: Thanks! to all of you still here for not giving up on me. Y’all are radical.

It’s unbelievably great to finally! feel like The Suffocating Silence has been broken. I finally! feel like I have something to say again, and maybe, just maybe, there are still a few of you who don’t hate me for unexpectedly disappearing off the face of the blogosphere for awhile, who forgive me for my lack of email correspondence, and who won’t stone me to death with strong-smelling spam for my poor social behavior as of late, although I’m sure I probably deserve it. (If I could have seen that pesky writer’s block falling from the sky, to knock me writing unconscious, believe me, I totally would have side-stepped it.)

I could surely be wrong on one, two, or all three of those accounts, but I feel ready to write again, and for me, that’s one huge step toward a smiling and happy kerri. We like smiling and happy kerri. Trust me when I tell you she’s a heck of a lot more fun to be around than droopy and obsessively compulsive about cleaning Kerri. If you don’t want to take my word for it, Chris will certainly vouch.