The time has finally come…

    In less than 10 weeks, I will be done with my bachelor’s program. I can hardly believe it. As I am gearing up towards graduation, I have been thinking a lot of about my grandparents, especially grandma. If she was still here with us, she’d be so proud of me and of my achievements. I’ve been thinking of ways to honor them during my graduation. I have finally decided to wear the Tiffany’s locket that Joey had given me many years ago, with their pictures in it. I got a little emotional and teary eyed when I ordered the pictures for the locket. Although I have our wedding photo with them on my screensaver, seeing their pictures and knowing that they aren’t here to celebrate our milestones still breaks my heart. I know that I need to move on, feeling sad and guilty won’t bring them back – and it’s only hurting myself emotionally. But I still need more time to grieve, I miss them so much. Rewatching our wedding videos was so bittersweet, seeing and hearing their voices and laughter made my heart ache more, but it gave me a moment of comfort knowing that they were happy for us, celebrating us that day and being able to send me off. I am also glad that they were there to witness our marriage and got to see how happy we are as a married couple. I hope that they know Joey has been taking great care of me in their absence. He’s been my rock through all the good times and all the hard times, including my grief. He’s been my biggest cheerleader through my college career as well as my professional career. My happiness always came first and everyone else and everything else came after.

I have been struggling with my weight for several years now. The last time I actively tried to lose weight was for our wedding – I managed to lose about 28 pounds in about 2.5 months. I started my weight loss journey for my graduation mid-January of this year. To date (1.5 months later), I have only lost 14 pounds. I am hoping to lose at least another 10 pounds by my graduation date. It has been rough but manageable so far. I feel this time around, it wasn’t as difficult or rigorous as the first attempt. And this round has been the healthier way of losing weight. I’ve been practicing clean eating, cutting carbs, cutting sugar, and portion control. I hope to continue this lifestyle change even after graduation and for years to come. Joey and I have been trying to conceive for several years with no luck. I think my body is just stressed from my crazy schedule between work, school, and the floral business. There were days and weeks where I worked and had to study for more than 80 hours. For months, my face was twitching from stress and lack of sleep, I’m glad it’s finally stopped. Not to mention that my menstrual cycle has been all over the place. There were months when I had two cycles! We went to urgent care to get it checked out and they couldn’t tell me what was causing the multiple cycles within a week apart. Joey was teasing me that I must have a lot of blood to give since I’ve bled for 3-4 weeks and was still alive and yet, not anemic according to the holistic doctor. That cannot be normal lol. But I hope that once I’m done with school, we can focus more on starting our little family. I can picture us bringing our toddlers to visit grandpa and grandma at Rose Hills, as well as my FIL. No matter how much time passes, it’ll never feel real that they’re gone. I don’t think I can ever accept it.