By Mary Russell, Psy.D.
This past Monday my good friend got married. She and her now husband have been friends since high school so their relationship was anything but rushed, though I can’t say the same thing about their wedding. For a number of reasons, the time between their engagement and wedding was just short of five weeks. For someone like myself – someone utterly OVER reliant on planning and organization – this was a logistical nightmare. What began as a quick elopement at city hall quickly turned into a full on wedding complete with rehearsal dinner, hair and makeup, and reception. Due to the short notice of it all, plans changed day to day. Needless to say, the process overwhelmed me. I found myself worrying. I worried about whether or not everything was going to “go off without a hitch.” I worried about her guests – if the venues were going to be able to accommodate them. Most of all, I worried about my friend and that her day wouldn’t go perfectly. She had done so much for me when I got married and I wanted to make sure that I did everything I could to ensure the same for her. Of course, I did not let her into the mind of my neurotic worrying – the least that I could do was not stress her out by calling attention to all the worst case scenarios I had constructed in my head!
Meanwhile, as I worried, my friend did not. She was ecstatic to marry the love of her life and, with this in mind, she remained flexible. She planned what she could and tried to let go of the rest. The day of the wedding, she presented with your typical wedding jitters but no more than that. The day was amazing. When small things did go awry, everyone adapted. The ceremony was beautiful and the party was great. Most importantly my friend and her husband were happy.
No matter how much we want it, we will never have 100% certainty about what’s going to happen and how plans will come together. While planning for the future and anticipating road blocks can certainly be helpful, worrying rarely is. Demanding that things be perfectly planned is never a guarantee that things will be executed as such. If and when things don’t go as planned, they are rarely if ever so bad we can’t handle or adapt to them. More often, they’re not bad at all…and in this case, they were pretty awesome. As my friend showed me, life will be spent a little bit happier if we give up our need for certainty and control sooner rather than later and roll with the punches. Congratulations and best wishes to the new Mr. and Mrs.