An engagement shoot to FALL for.

After my mom left to go back home to California, I immediately started counting down the days until it was time for me to go back myself for Christmas. (Down to 43 now.) I had an embarrassingly hard time after she left, as you can clearly see from my last Blog post, but in the days that ensued I began to glue myself back together.

It's true what they say about difficulties making you stronger as a person. I definitely have started feeling like The Hulk himself lately. And I'm thankful for the strength that comes just when you think you can't take it anymore. Turns out I can take it. Turns out I'm stronger than I thought.

Up and down went the roller coaster...

After picking myself up, dusting myself off, and realizing that life isn't as hard as my hormone-infused mind was trying to lead me to believe, Jason and I got our engagement photos taken. Even writing those words I kind of look at the screen like, what? That really happened?

It really happened.

Sometimes I think that I wished for this love so hard that on some level maybe I convinced myself I wanted it too much. Maybe I convinced myself that that kind of fairytale just wasn't in the cards for me. A love so big your eyes can't even stretch wide enough to see it all. That's the kind of love I have.

I don't want to come off brag-y. I never want that. I want to rejoice and show thanks for the beautiful things in my life, but I don't want to talk about them with that ever-present "neener-neener-neener" mentality. I just love him. I didn't know he existed. I didn't know a journey like the one I'm on would ever be real for me. And I have to just keep pinching myself.

I was in love before. Or so I thought. What I'm coming to wonder is that maybe I did love the person, but I was in love with the idea of that person more than the person himself. I drove myself (and probably him, too) crazy with this desire. And when I finally began to let him go, I focused on me. I focused on what I love - music, fashion, writing, reading, Netflix binging. Then I went to a party and Jason was there and we played guitar together until 2 AM and the rest, as they say, is history.

He's my best friend. AND my soul mate. I don't say that nonchalantly because I have another best friend/soul mate who is really more of my sister and I've known her since I was 5. She's also going to be my Maid of Honor. Jason is my best friend in the way that I always wanted my future husband to be. Someone who I can make laugh and someone who makes me laugh. Someone who I can fight with and make up with. Someone I can talk to and cry to and who talks and cries to me. Someone who puts up with my mood swings, going back and forth between our moving here being the best and worst decision I've ever made. (But mostly the best.) Someone who looks at me in a way that still gives me butterflies. Someone who makes me feel safe and at home and completely complete.

Someone I am going to be proud to call my husband in exactly 634 days.

'Til next time.

Xoxo,

Gossip Girl

(just kidding)

 

The Hills of Pennsylvania.

I found myself in the hills of Pennsylvania, with nothing but the greenery and the quiet, calming sound of nature around me. Birds chirping, bees buzzing, wind blowing through the trees... you know, all of that cliché nature shit. I call it the Hills of Pennsylvania because my s/o once wrote a song with that title that he plays from time to time and whenever we venture in to his old stomping ground, I can never get that song out of my head. I also call it that because Philadelphia (very much city) and northern PA (very much not city) are two very different places, so calling it the hills of Pennsylvania with it's numerous green, rolling hills just seems appropriate. 

I have some family that is from PA and, apparently, I had been there once when I was very little, although I don't remember it. Visiting Jason there for a week two Christmases ago when it was covered in snow was quite the experience. Now that we live a mere hour away, however, I have found myself in various parts of PA almost every weekend getting to know it in every season on a much more personal level; my s/o in the driver's seat pointing out old memories through the window.

I have come to like it much more than I like New Jersey. (No offense, Jewwwsey.) While New Jersey is beautiful and incredibly close to the (New York) city that holds my heart, Pennsylvania is something else entirely. And while the people are still East Coasters, at least they don't scowl at you as if they're plotting your death when you politely smile making eye contact with them in the grocery store. I just want some laundry detergent, I don't want to murder you.

We ventured down to Norristown, PA two weekends ago to visit Jason's two aunts and get ready for a huge soiree they were having. It's true what they say about East Coast summers- they're humid, they're sticky, and they're absolutely beautiful. With all of this green it's as if I am living in another world entirely and while California is still the best place on the planet, I can definitely see the East Coast's appeal.

The party was for Jason's visiting aunt from California, his little cousin's birthday, and an array of other celebrations all thrown into one. As a turn of events, about halfway through the party, Jason's uncle showed up with bottles of champagne, presents, and a speech congratulating Jason and I on our engagement. Everyone yelled and cheered and Jason (of course) sprayed the champagne on us all. It was great.

We partied through the night.

I couldn't stop smelling the air and even though I consider myself a writer, I hate to admit that I don't think I could ever describe it enough to do it justice. You'll just have to visit someday during the summer and smell it for yourself.

When Jason pulled out my guitar and handed it to me, I was peer-pressured in to singing for everyone even though I disclaimed repeatedly that I had had a cold for the last week and a half. 

I sang the song I wrote for Jason entitled Pennsylvania. I figured it was appropriate. One verse in and I already had his aunt in tears. Throughout the evening I would hear, "Taylor, play it again!" and so I did. Probably about 17 more times, in fact. 

It was a weekend for the books. We went to PA again the weekend after that and Saturday morning we're heading back to Philly. I didn't realize moving to New Jersey would allow me so much time in Pennsylvania, but... I'm glad it is.

The best day.

May 3rd, 2015 at 4:06 PM was the single greatest moment in the single greatest day of my entire life.

I was in Central Park, New York City- my favorite place in the world. It was a beautiful spring Sunday afternoon with not a cloud in the sky. The breeze was blowing through the fully bloomed trees, and grass, flowers, and greenery all around me. 

I was standing near a pond and next to what is now my favorite bridge in the park, watching the ducks swim, with the love of my life. 

I was calm, content, and grateful for such a beautiful day.

Then, suddenly, my best friend, my soul mate... He turned to face me and slowly got down on one knee. Before my heart could catch up with my head to figure out what was going on, he pulled out of his pocket a small, black box.

My hands flew to my mouth as my jaw dropped in shock and I couldn't breathe.

"Taylor Worthey," he said, tears filling his big, brown eyes, "Will you marry me?"

The whole world had gone quiet and all that was real was me and him.

Tears filled my eyes and I believe my exact words in response were, "Yes! Oh my God! Yes! Yes!"

I pulled the ring from the box and shoved it on my finger without even looking at it. 

I grabbed my fiancé's face and he stood up, wrapping his arms around me and smiling. We kissed, and laughed, and cried, and kissed some more.

He scolded me for not even looking at the ring and when I finally did I realized it was perfect. Exactly what I had always imagined it would be. Just as was this monumental moment.

The best person I know, the best thing that has ever happened to me... And he asked me to be his, forever.

We lied in the grass together in Central Park for nearly an hour, soaking in our engagement and daydreaming about all that is now to come.

All I can do now is smile, and thank God, and stare- incessantly- at my left hand.