While I said I wasn’t going to give anymore power to people whom are careless with my feelings and hurt me—sometimes it’s so hard not to well, feel all sorts of feels. The last 10 months of my life have been so amazing, filled with incredible adventures with my fiancé from trips to upstate New York, Long Island, NYC, and even Buenos Aires, Argentina! We have discovered and [mostly] committed to the Paleo lifestyle, rediscovered ourselves in our personal fitness pursuits, and grown a lot through our respected lines of work beyond fitness. All this awesomeness while our lives continued to blend and take shape as one, we also spent the last 10 months planning our wedding. The planning was fun and exciting—tasting food, picking out our ketuba, meeting with our Rabbi, and even reigniting our interests in our Jewish faith after getting our hands on some rad Judaica stuff! But all that joy seemed to quickly be usurped once we sent out those invitations.

As I have mentioned before, you really learn about the people in your lives when you get married. That said, as June 20^th becomes more and more of a reality, it seems like the universe is constantly testing the two of us. While I have tried to remain graceful in the face of having my heart shattered by long-time friends simply not seeing me or my wedding as a priority, I finally lost it on one of my oldest friends. And while I would like to say that I feel bad about it, I don’t. I would like to say that I am surprised by her poor behavior, but I am not. Finally, I would like to say that I don’t have to waste anymore time thinking about her or the others that have cast a tainted cloud on my nuptials—but I can’t. I just can’t let it go. Shit, where is Elsa when you need her?!

While brooding in my frustration, I thought [again] to myself that my reaction to the issues I am having with people in my life is simply unacceptable. It sure as hell is not changing the situation, so how am I doing myself any good by stewing in my rage? I am however self-aware enough to know that part of being a strong and successful person means being able to cope with my emotions. Unfortunately for me, right now, my anxiety and restlessness were eating away at me. I knew that it was futile to fester and that the key to success in anything is the ability to find the light amidst the darkest of nights. And then I remembered something. I remembered a picture I took of a journal that one of my 9^th graders wrote this week.

I reread the 1-page journal entry to myself. The grammar and spelling errors melted away into the land of ‘that’s ok, I know what you mean’ and I thought to myself,

“I do matter”.

I friggen DO matter.

I MATTER.

My existence on this planet is one that will leave a legacy behind because I build people up, I show up for people, and I make being the best God damn person I can be a priority.

Though I am still wrestling with how to accept what I feel to be incredibly personal affronts to Greg and I, after reading the journal entry, Maya Angelou’s famous words rang true:

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Subsequently, June 20^th is almost here. Some people who swore they were coming, couldn’t wait to share in our merriment, and said they’d bare witness to my wedding will not be in attendance. But I am done mourning these people and I mean it this time (Scout’s honor!). For it was through the eyes of a young girl, my student, I was able to reclaim myself and remember that, I matter. A well, since we have a bunch of people not coming to the wedding, maybe we’ll even invite her…