It might seem crazy what I'm about to say...

...I'm engaged.

I am getting married. The when, the where and the how you'll know if you know. The rest. Well. It's exciting, scary, and feels overwhelming at times but I had to put it on here...on my blog.

This blog was started to journal my journey, from London to Pescara and beyond. When embarking on my move to Italy, and starting the blog in it's first form, 'Pakes in Pescara', I had plans. BIG plans. Plans to learn stuff, and see stuff, and do stuff. Adventures. Laughter. Ups and Downs. The Works. But me, oh my. I never quite imagined that the learning would ever go this DEEP. A soul-searching, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, mess-making, swirly-whirly depth.

This journey has led me to Milan and now an engagement to my Hussain. A man that has journeyed himself, in a very different way, but journeyed none the less. Now begins our attempt to journey together towards a wedding and beyond.

Marriage is going to be messy, and complicated, and full of mistakes, and, and, and, and...STOP.

I went through a period of only seeing the negatives of the whole thing. The loss of identity, the loss of 'independence', the loss of this and that and the socks. But enough was enough. I made a decision to change loss to transformation. I will always have my identity, it is just always going to be transforming. I will always have my independence, it's just right now the boundaries of that independence are transforming. And socks...goodness, I will loose a few but I can knit so there's no issue there.

Then, there's the butterflies, and this video. I made a 'discovery', while researching the lifecycle of a caterpillar for a class project, that the metamorphis of a caterpillar into a butterfly means the caterpillar, well, it's pretty disgusting, but the caterpillar...eats itself. Yep, when inside a chrysalis, which develops under it's skin during the last days of it's time as a caterpillar, the caterpillar releases an enzyme that dissolves itself into, as the video below says, 'butterfly soup'. Noone really understands how this goo then turns into a butterfly, but it does.

This metamorphis gives me strength. Strength in that if a caterpillar completely dissolves before becoming a butterfly, I too can sit and be patient while my insides dissolve and become something new. The gut-wrenching emotions, that can only be described as 'grief of myself', need to happen, even though it is such internal pain. However, the scars of that pain will transform into the fibres I need to make my marriage.

To close, as I transform from a 'me' into an 'us', I give thanks that I have my Hussain, the kind of guy that when I just asked him if he's happy replied "If I'm not happy in this moment when will I be happy then?". Honestly...God is good. Amen.