So, this has been a week of bunting, boys and bride to be blues.
Like most of my Furlough week’s, it started with a nice morning run, me putting together an everything5pound.com outfit, taking the obligatory instastory and finishing off a LinkedIn learning course I’d been working on. The afternoon was good too, I had a video chat with my sisters, I started making some bunting for VE Day and before I knew it, Stu had finished work and it was time for us to sit down and have dinner.
After dinner me and Stu decided that rather than spending another evening flicking between episodes of Gogglebox and repeats of The Inbetweeners, we’d comit to watching an actual drama. Trying to find a midway between my love of Sex and the City and Stu’s love of anything with football proved difficult, but somehow we managed to settle on Homeland.
After watching the first episode, I suddenly felt really sad. Knowing something was wrong because I hadn’t said something for more than a minute (hours in Ali time ) Stu asked me what was wrong. Of course when he asked me that then made me burst into tears. No, I wasn’t crying over the thought that Damien Lewis’ character in Homeland could have possibly been radicalised (#homeland spoiler)But, for some completely illogical reason even though I’d had a lovely day, when I sat down at the moment, I started to worry about our wedding in July not happening.
To make things worse, the more I cried the guiltier I felt. 1. For being a cry baby after feeling so proud that I’d been so positive so far. 2. I could see Stuart was getting sad about me crying and he was being so strong for me and I knew he had his own stresses to deal with 3. I had all the messed up images in my head from Homeland and I was getting upset about a silly wedding – I knew we should have just watched Gogglebox!
After a few more sobs and comforting hugs from Stu, we went to bed and I woke up the next day, determined I wasn’t going let the wedding get me down. Again, I went for a run, donned an everything5pound.com outfit, wrote a blog, spoke to my friend Rachel and finished off my bunting. I was feeling on a productivity high, until I looked outside to see what the neighbours had for their bunting…suddenly my six triangles didn’t look quite so impressive. Things went from bad to worse when my lovely phone decided to remind me that my hen party was just three weeks away and I should book my beauty treatments – I knew I shouldn’t be so organised with my beauty routine!
Meanwhile, Stu was going through his own stresses with work and while I was trying hard to stay out of his way, the House of Burnett suddenly felt very small.
By the time it got to Wednesday, I had well and truly fallen out of love of lockdown. Despite my positivity blogs and happy attitude, my wedding had never seemed further away, my motivation was dwindling and all I wanted was my “normal” life. Thankfully, just when I was at breaking point I had three lifelines to get me out.
Life line number one was my Maid of Honour to be Helen. In between texting her about serious topics like how Come Dine With Me and who we’d seen from school recently, I explained to her how low I’d been feeling about the wedding. Apart from Stuart, Helen is one of the most practical people I know. So, in addition to giving me a nice little pep talk, Helen, was able to give me a much needed reality check about the whole situation and remind me that the wedding will happen.
Feeling a lot more positive, I then set off on a lunchtime walk and made a call to life line number two…mum. Like me, she’d been having a low few days and had just about enough of lockdown. As we bitched about the whole situation and gave ourselves a break from being positive, ironically we started to feel a lot more positive! Also, one of the benefits of having the most honest mums in the world is you know that when they give you a compliment, there is some truth in it – if something’s bad Mum will definitely tell you. So, when I told mum I wasn’t feeling great about my bunting and she said it looked really good, I knew it couldn’t be that bad.
That evening, thanks to Helen and Mum I was feeling ALOT better, but after two days of me being low about weddings and lockdownitus mixed with Stu being tired and stressed with work, there was still a little bit of an atmosphere…call on life line number three, Ben!
See there are loads of amazing things about Ben, karaoke talents, witty, stylish, to name just a few… but one of the greatest things about having Ben as a best friend is that when I send him long meltdown messages about my life. Not only is he able give me great advice because he totally gets me, but he also gives me the guy’s perspective, allowing me to understand where Stu is coming from.
In this scenario, like always he was totally non-judgemental and explained how it was totally normal that both me and Stu would be having tensions thinking that the other had the better deal with the working situation but at the same time we can still be there to support each other. (I paraphrased that really badly by the way but that was the gist and it was very useful advice!)
Meanwhile, Stu had been calling on his on lifelines and by the time it got to the evening we were both in a much better place and realised whatever crazy stuff was going on we had each other and that’s what counts.
We ended the week like most of the country with a social distanced street party for VE Day. We hung my bunting which I ended up feeling proudish off because even though it might not have been as good as the Neighbour’s, mum thought it was good which was all the approval I needed!
After a day of playing music and games with the neighbours, me and Stu had a really tasty Indian and agreed on our plan for the wedding, leaving us full of curry and positivity. We know there will be more ups and downs on our coronavirus wedding journey, but thankfully for us we’ve got each other and like any good game some amazing lifelines to get us through.
alanaburnett 