I was supposed to get married today.

Ten years ago, I was very actively planning a June wedding.

I used to spend a lot of time looking forward (and counting down) to June 26, 2010 because at the ripe old age of 22, I was finally going to be married.

(My Opa used to ask why it was taking me so long to find a husband...I like to think he was joking.)

I wasn't necessarily the girl who had a wedding book made up or spent her childhood yearning to be a bride/wife, but I always assumed that I would meet the "right" guy, settle down and get married, start a family, all that jazz that had been modelled to me as a kid.

At that stage of the game, I had a pretty fixed (and limited) idea of how my life should play out and what "success" would look like:

I wanted to be engaged right after school (so everyone knew I was desirable and worth locking down) to someone from my church community (so everyone would know I wasn't tarnished goods and going to hell) and buying a house (so they'd know we were financially secure and making smart investments for our future. Also because renovating your own house looked like a very fun project).

I spent my teens and early 20's seeking the checks to those boxes. And despite having a pretty skewed (and lack-fuelled) idea of what was the "most important" in terms of choosing a partner to co-create a life with, I soldiered on.

All of that soldiering included a lot of details and events that led up to the June 26th wedding date (which I now affectionately refer to as my "anti-versary") but to do the whole story justice would require a book....which is coming. Not today.

For now, I want to talk about the moment that everything changed.

The term "calling off an engagement" can mean a lot of different things — no matter what, you're ending a very important relationship, and that's always hard.

But the closer you get to a wedding...the harder it is to change your mind. Because even though a relationship is never just about you and the other person — as much as we want it to be — people get really personally involved when it comes to a wedding.

When I've spoken to other humans who made a similar decision, it's uncanny how often the fear of calling things off is actually rooted in letting other people down. It's crazy-making when you realize how many people would rather silently suffer for the rest of their lives than risk potentially affecting someone they care about.

"But so-and-so already paid for the bridesmaid dress." — said me

"But this person booked took work off and booked a hotel so they could come." — also me

"But I don't want to upset anyone." — guess who...c'est moi!

That's the position I found myself in, and those were (some of the many) reasons that I was telling myself I had to stay. Every time I would question the state of my relationship or the track I was on, somebody else's face would pop into my head.

I was terrified of letting people down, and it felt easier to just keep checking off my bridal to-do list, and tell myself that the jitters were normal; they would pass.

All of the doing kept me going for a while.

The to-do's distracted me through the process of saying yes to the dress, of paying the deposit for the venue, choosing the flowers, the warning signs from pre-marital counselling, designing the invitations...

Then came the ultimate moment of reckoning:

I had to mail out said invitations.

Now. I had spent hours designing these invitations. I was super into scrap-booking at the time (probably something you didn't expect to learn about me today) and put so much thought into each and every blue + white detail.

I needed help with the actual assembly of the cards, so I took advantage when help was offered. I gave a detailed tutorial of how to make them, passed off my treasured crafting supplies, and gave myself a pat on the back for successfully delegating.

But.

(Of course there's a but!)

When I got those assembled invitations and it was time to address + mail them out, I couldn't do it. Because first of all, the design execution was all wrong.

My lovely helper had decided that there was a better way to make the invitations, and instead of running it by me, she made a well-intentioned executive decision to do them her own way.

I was overall a pretty chill bride, but this was not okay with me at the time.

It was all wrong.

But the invitation design wasn't the real problem...it was just the tip of it. It was the thing that got finally my attention and led me to explore what I was feeling a little more.

Because once the rage over the botched designed subsided, I realized that instead of feeling excited to write out the names and addresses of everyone I loved, inviting them to join me in celebrating the start of my new life...it felt like my entire upper body had solidified into a block of concrete.

I stood at the door of my bedroom, holding the box of cards, all cut up and folded and glued back together with 150 pictures of me and my fiancé beaming up at...well, me...and I felt like I couldn't breathe.

I wanted to drop the box but I couldn't move.

I didn't know paper could carry so much weight.

For once, I allowed myself to lean into the "it's all wrong" ness of what I was feeling. Soon, what started as frustration over a box of wedding invitations began to make its way through every aspect of my relationship, and the lens through which I was viewing my choices.

All of the things I had very willingly been ignoring, avoiding, and explaining away...they began to come into focus and I couldn't unsee any of it. (For better or worse.)

Honestly, I didn't know what I was supposed to do with all of that knowing. And that was okay.

Because I didn't need to know what to do with all of the knowing...I just had to know enough to take next step.

The actual chronological sequence of events from "Oh shit I don't want to mail these invitations" to "I can't get married to this person" is murky for me — one of my coping mechanisms in moments of stress is to dissociate; I can go through the motions, but it's as if my brain doesn't story the memory of my actions.

What I do remember is sitting down at the kitchen counter with my mom and cousin, falling apart. "I don't think I can do this," I said over and over through the snot and tears, and, "I don't know what to do."

I shared all of the buts and the ands and my mom reassured me. (I think all of the crying maybe scared my cousin a bit, but she sat with me through it all too.)

And while the details of what my mom said may not have been stored verbatim, here is what I've taken away from that conversation, more than 10 years later:

You are the only one who thinks you're failing.

The people who love you...they just want to see you happy.

She also reminded me that there was room between the "I'm not sure" that I was sitting in that Thursday night, and the "I need to call everyone and cancel everything so I can curl up and die of shame."

The thing is, there is always possibility between extremes...and in this case, my first step was deciding to delay the wedding.

Because this collision of feeling and expression hit me approximately 10 weeks before the event was to take place, which is why I was feeling so much pressure to see everything through.

Deposits were made, orders were placed, and people were starting to plan their travel.

The prospect of cancelling all of that and dealing with the fall-out felt like an insurmountable undertaking, probably because the memory of to-dos was still so fresh; it was a lot of boxes to uncheck and undo.

That felt overwhelming, but pausing felt doable.

"Everyone will understand if you just need a bit more time," was the thing I could wrap my head around.

So I took a deep breath, stood up from where I had been crying for the few hours, and I resolved to tell my fiancé that we needed some more time to make this wedding happen.

I got in the car, and drove over to have the conversation before I could change my mind.

But. On the drive over, I changed my mind.

Because it took less than ten minutes (the length of the drive) for me to integrate the prospect of a delay, and realize that this was actually the end of our road together.

By the time I got to his house, I knew that we were done.

June 26 was not my wedding day after all.

But every year I think about what would have been if I had listened to the fear that was propelling me forward instead of the weight in my chest that was telling me to stop.

There are so many times in my life that I persisted with a choice just because I already made it, I didn't want people to think I was flaky, non-committed, or I didn't want to waste anyone's time.

And if I had stuck with that lack-fuelled theme, I would have ended up married to a very, very, very different human than the one I'm with; I would still be me, but not the person I am today.

I didn't know where I was going to land when I stepped off of that pre-determined path...and now, ten years later, I still don't know where I'm going to "land."

What I do know is that I'm okay with not knowing.

I've learned to take the next best step for me — not what I think everyone else thinks is best for me — and trust that I'll figure out the step that comes after that one.

Learning to trust your Self takes time.

And you have to muster the courage to take that first unknown step.

At 22, I was ready to commit to something I wasn't sure of because I felt like I had to. And once I turned the "had to" upside down to see what was underneath...it turns out that I was the one perpetuating that script.

I projected the story I was telling myself onto everyone around me, and I looked for confirmation that getting married was the thing I "had" to do.

What I really wanted wasn't to get married, or to own and renovate my own home — I wanted to live my own life, and I wanted to feel like I belonged somewhere. I thought that checking the pre-determined boxes and doing "the things" to fit in would eventually provide me with that sense of coming home.

I wanted a wedding to prove that I was loveable; I wanted someone else to deem me worthy.

The thing I've learned is that love and your sense of worth have to come from within, before they can be validated by the people in your life. Because at the end of the day, there is one person that you absolutely must go to bed with.

(Spoiler alert: That person is you.)

What about that fear?

The search for external validation had me on a path that wasn't going to end well long term, because it wasn't aligned with who I really am. I stuck to it because I was so afraid of what everyone else would think or say about it.

And, after I took the leap and made the call I'd feared for so long...the people I was worried would talk about or shame me, didn't.

Every single person I came into contact with showed me 100% support from the moment the word was out that I cancelled my wedding. In fact, so many of my friends and family started to tell me how they really felt as they watched me plan the rest of my life...

"I worried about what you were getting into, and hated seeing you so sad" — my best friends

"You did the right thing." — the pre-marital counsellor

"I wish I had that courage when I was your age." — my boss

It turned out that my mom was right...they just wanted to see me happy, and it was such a powerful reminder that people just want what's best for you. And.

What feels like a failure to you might look like a massive success to them.

The point isn't that it matters what they think; whether or not your choice looks like a or a failure success to them isn't the important takeaway here.

The important part is to mind the gap between what we think people think (especially the ones who love us) versus what they actually think, and the ways that those misconceptions can sell us short.

You are the only one who thinks you are failing.

The rest of us? We think you're fucking killing it.

So listen to your feelings — they matter.
Remain critical about the path you're following — you choose the next step.
You can always change your mind — the people who love you, love you.

And you don't have to do anything to earn that.