You Can't Always Get What You Want

I know this is going to come off as selfish, so I want to preface it by saying that I'm really NOT being ungrateful or selfish. I'm just...wistful and wish my experience in life could be similar to what I see so often.

I don't expect my wedding/engagement experience to be 'traditional' in the sense of American weddings and engagements. I'm sure I'll have a shower, because my maid of honor/best friend is amazing like that, and she's from a family that's from here so she knows what happens in American weddings. But...I don't know that anyone will come. And it's not even about gifts, it's more about having family there with me, celebrating, being excited that I'm getting married. It's not so much that they don't care about me, it's just that it's not done that way in the Dominican Republic, and so I don't know that I'll get what I see friends and acquaintances getting. And...I guess I'm just sad.

I grew up here, so I see people having engagement parties, and tons of showers, and registering for gifts, and I just...don't see that in my future. I'd LOVE to have an engagement party, but it's not like I can throw one myself, and since neither of our families are from here, neither of them have that as part of their traditions, so neither would think to give us one. So when I see people posting pictures of their fabulous fun engagement parties, I get a little...sad that I won't have that.

And when hearing about how much fun other girls are having making their registries with their future husbands, I start feeling a little jealous because when I discussed it with my fiance, he didn't really understand why we would have one, because it's not like anyone in his family would even look at it (because that's not what they do in his family), and my family's poor so they can't afford it either. Not that I need or want gifts, but it just seems like making the registry is an experience that so many people love, and I just...want that experience.

I know that seems selfish. I'll take what I can get, obviously, and not being able to have all these frills doesn't change the fact that I'm thrilled to be engaged and I'm thrilled to be getting married. It's just that it really highlights my sense of feeling 'in between' - caught in the middle of old world and new world. I grew up in a world where all these things are done - engagement parties, showers with lots of games and fun and decorations and cakes, registries - but my family grew up in a world where it's not.

I'm all jumbled up. I'm really not very articulate at all, and I'm having a hard time trying to get my point across - that it's not that I want THINGS, I just want EXPERIENCES that everyone else I grew up with gets, but that I won't get because it's not traditional in my culture. So while planning my wedding is really fun so far, it's sort of tinted with a little bit of jealousy for all the additional things I won't get to experience. If I got to experience traditions FROM my culture I think I'd be less jealous, but I won't even get that, because my family's traditionalism ends at "No sex before marriage, no sharing a bed before marriage, ask father's permission for daughter's hand in marriage." Any traditions I want, I'm going to have to learn about on my own using the internet, because they never taught me about anything, and I'm going to have to sort of...wing it. So there's just no trade off.

But that's life. I just have to suck it up and forget about those things. I have to focus on my love for Ross, and how amazing marrying him is going to be, and the other little things that I'll get to enjoy, like getting a beautiful dress and finding a church.