Today is my wedding day! I am so filled with emotions. I am excited for the future and what our union will bring; the house, the kids, a family. I am nervous about the ceremony and whether everything will happen according to our plans. I am giddy with the thought of my new “husband”. I have been practicing my new name, writing it over and over just to see how it would look. But I’m also sad. Everyone has been telling me how happy they are for me and everyone has been congratulating me, but I can’t help but feel something else. As I’m getting ready, my mom comes in to help me prepare and she tells me that I must have something old, check, I have my grandmother’s pearl necklace; something new, check, my dress is new; something borrowed, check, I borrowed the bracelet I’m wearing from my sister; and something blue, check, I have my mother’s blue handkerchief. My mother then goes on to share with me the tradition behind this saying. As my mom is talking, I can’t help but think about what she is saying about something old symbolizing the past that I am leaving behind to start a new beginning, and something new symbolizing the hope for the future that my new husband to be and I are starting; our new union. If only she knew that in the midst of all of the excitement, I am sad.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sad because of the man I’m marrying, or the thought of being married to him. I am sad about the life that I am leaving behind; the life where I can come and go as I please. I am sad about not being able to pick up and go back to my house if he gets on my nerves. I am sad about the old life I am leaving behind, the one that I have known for 26 years. I am in mourning. I am transitioning from a Miss to a Mrs. No one ever talks about what it takes to transition from single to married, from something old to something new. What does it take, what do I have to do?

This is the scenario that I went through almost 13 years ago. I thought something was wrong with me because no one ever talks about the mourning that can happen; the ending to begin when you are going from Miss to Mrs. I eventually learned that in order to have something new, I had to leave something old behind. This has been true throughout my marriage. I have learned that there is an ebb and flow to marriage. I have learned that in order to see the light, we had to go through darkness, to understand happiness we had to go through sadness, in order to appreciate peace we have had to go through war. Everyone wants the happily ever after, but few want to put in the hard work to get there. Our marriage has been full of ups and downs, the good and the bad, the rich and the poor. When going through some of those times, you couldn’t have told me that those bad times would be for my good or the times that I felt like we were being broken down that we would later be built up. Because of this ebb and flow, I have finally begun to understand the true meaning behind the bible verse in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, which says in part; to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to break down and a time to build up. You see, I learned that if I want the good, I have to deal with the bad. If I want the laughter, I have to have times of tears. If I want the peace, I will have times of war. I have learned that I must appreciate the hard times because they are only preparing me for the good times. I have learned that there is a transition; there is an ebb and flow. I have learned that to transition from Miss to Mrs. I must mourn and appreciate my journey from something old to something new.