Life is so precious. The feeling of being absolutely helpless is something I don’t want to feel again. But to experience the shear love and care that was given to me was nothing short of agape. I got you forever.

An Ode to 2020

Not really sure why I’m awake right now. If this was pre-marriage, I would have taken out my laptop to start typing, but it’s not and Bri is knocked tf out, so here we are. I guess this is the ode to 2020 post that I’ve been meaning to annotate for a while now.

This has been the most transformative year of my life. So many changes in more ways than one. Way more ways. Try like 20. A lot of crying (which I never do.... or maybe i just don’t admit to, lmao), a lot of introspection, a lot of uncomfortability (is that a word?), and a lot of change. A whole lot.

The year started off with optimism and ended with the same notion. Full of hope and wonder for the year set before me, I couldn’t wait for 2020 - it was supposed to be the year all my dreams came true.. and in a weird way, it was! It was the year I got married to the love of my life(!!!!!!), reached 5 years at my corporate job, relocated to a new home in a new city and area code. It was all that - but it wouldn’t be my life if it wasn’t that, plus a little pizzazz, lol.

It’s hard for me to give myself grace. Truly I think I am the hardest on myself. Always empathetic of others and their experiences, but always giving myself the short end of the stick. Living in a pandemic has been wild - but living through my huge life changes in the middle of a pandemic has proven to be even more wild. As a person who doesn’t necessarily love change, I’ve struggled to give myself grace in the midst of the huge life changes I’ve experienced. I’m damn proud of how far I’ve come and how strong I’ve been to withstand the trials that I battle without me really saying a word to a single soul. As a person, me typing this stuff out is me telling the world my story - even if no one reads it. This year changed my life.

Marriage.

I became a wife and entered the covenant of marriage. It really is true that you enter into a marital bliss that is full of love you don’t experience until you get married. It’s unlocking a next level of your relationship and discovering a new version of yourself ... yourself plus another human. There really are different levels of love that you are surprised to find out that you are capable of. It’s different than just being in a relationship with one another. Now we’re bound to each other under a different covenant - before the eyes of God, our family, our friends and the law. It’s weird filling out paperwork and realizing that legally I am no longer a Villaflor. Well technically I’ll always be a Villaflor (Melanie Rose Villaflor Argamaso to be exact, okurrrttttt). I stepped into this role of being a wife and all the “responsibilities” that came with it and also fully embraced the fact that I have a person to do life with who loves me more than himself, who is always thinking of me, always taking care of me, always looking out for me, and who genuinely takes responsibility for me. It’s weird. It’s things I knew of during our relationship, but in marriage it’s somehow personified.. magnified. Marriage is so cool. Maybe it’s cool for me because there’s been such an emphasis and importance placed on it ever since I was a little girl. Bri and I didn’t have the “modern relationship” where we lived together prior to marriage. Yea we slept over and had our own respective places, but to really enter into marriage where everyday it’s me and you, and we have a whole ass home and life together is really wild. I love it. Doing life with Bri is me truly seeing that this man really would give me the world if I asked for it. Anything I could ever want or need, he fulfills it. Everyone always asks me what I’ve learned about him since we got married, or what’s something new about Bri that I’ve discovered ... one thing is that this man and his hobbies are unmatched, bro loves him some cars, any moving vehicle really, lmao. But mostly, I see his heart. He always wants the best - for me and for himself and anyone he cares about, sometimes to a fault when he can’t attain perfection but so badly wants to achieve it. But most times he can .. and then some. I’ve never met someone so naturally good at so many things. Tactically advanced, street smart as hell, a risk taker with the ability to fix just about anything, a people person with an infectious personality who could probably resell a piece of lint if he had to. We’re a family now. A little family of two but we’re both at a place where we really wouldn’t mind unlocking another level of love if it were time to. (He asks me for a “grey” from @greyandmama on IG almost weekly 🥺🥴😂).

Wedding.

It seemed like I waited so, so long for our wedding - for it to come and go like the wind. But instead of a nice sea breeze, it came and went like a tropical storm (... literally 😂but more on that later!) I remember being so excited on New Years Day at the start of 2020 ... the anticipation of our wedding in the next five months and really the start of all of our wedding festivities would begin within the next month ... or so I thought.

I remember hearing about the coronavirus making landfall in the US around the holidays in 2019 and it was already steadily spreading across the US, but not quite as widespread as it currently is. I was going on a work trip to Florida towards the end of January and I remember wearing a mask in the airport and on the flight and I conducted my usual Lysol-ing of my entire space. Everyone was looking at me like I was insane but I really didn’t care, haha. A flight attendant asked me why I was wearing a mask and I replied that I just wanted to stay healthy for my family. (...Still true, lol.) I had no idea at this moment how significantly the coronavirus was going to disrupt our world, how normal mask wearing would be, and how disinfectant wipes would soon be the most prized commodity in 21st century homes. 

February came like a rush - I started designing our wedding invitation suite which was something I had literally dreamed about. I had a vision from the very beginning and new exactly how I wanted everything to look down to the postage stamp. It reinforced a love for stationery design that I knew I had, but damn was I proud of the finished product. I was so meticulous about everything - from the fonts I used, the colors and hues of the paper, the thickness of the paper, the envelopes, the ink I used. It was so intricate, but it was the most fun I ever had while designing something. It didn’t feel like work at all, but it was pure love that I poured into those invitations. Bri’s bachelor party happened in early March and my bachelorette in Chicago (!!!) was supposed to happen at the end of March. The boys went to Jacksonville, Florida and were able to stay with Bri’s old roommate, Ace in his beautiful home. Coronavirus cases were on the upswing, especially in Florida and Atlanta. I was so freaked out. N95′s were no where to be found, but since Bri is a painter, he was able to score some through work. He wore one on the flight and literally got light headed due to lack of oxygen, lol. He had the time of his life in Florida while I poured my whole self into our invitations, lol. And as soon as the boys got back, the US started to shut down. 

Everyone began to work from home and businesses started closing up shop. Star couldn’t make it to my bachelorette, so she schemed her way into getting me to pole dance with all the girls, hahaha. It was literally the night before everything was supposed to shut down. No indoor dining or bars were going to be open at midnight the following Monday, so I was super thankful that I was able to have a mini bachelorette experience in our own little backyard.  

It was an anomaly to fly anywhere and airports became ghost towns. Each day we got a little closer to my bachelorette and myself and the girls were so excited. Itineraries were made, bickering ensued, flights were purchased, I bought outfits for every outing (... so much white, lol) Literally the only thing left for us to do was to actually fly to Chicago. Probably a week to a week and a half before we were supposed to fly out, Chicago issued a stay at home order and everything shut down. We had to make the difficult decision to cancel my bachelorette trip to Chicago and try to rebound and think of a plan B. The girls were so gracious. I’m so thankful for all the work they put in to try and make things work out for me. We tried to do a weekend trip to Ashville, NC but everything was so risky and there was so much unknown at this point. Covid mandates varied from state to state and things were quite literally changing by the day, the hour even. It just didn’t work out. Till this day I’m sad that I didn’t get to have the full bachelorette experience, but I’m still so, so thankfulI for my friends and the work that they put in to make everything feel as normal as possible. 

Home.

Careers.

Relationships.

Ok I’ll reflect on these things later. I’m sleepy, lol.

Seasons of transition - though uncomfortable, they are gentle reminders of how blessed I am. We’re a family, us two, and I couldn’t be more thankful that we are.  

What we’re reading ★ @itsPeteski on instagram

I can be someone’s and still be my own.

Shel Silverstein (via quotemadness)

I need to stop fantasizing about running away to some other life, and start figuring out the one I have.

Holly Black (via thoughtkick)

Spent the whole day watching movies in sweatpants and no makeup and ended our day with McDonald’s in a hammock at an overlook on the blue ridge parkway, just twenty minutes from our house. The simplest of days, but the most perfect.

This is it. We’re officially living in the times where we’ll one day look back and say “remember when we..” - these are the stories we tell our kids about or reflect on when we’re old and gray. We’re living it. It’s happening. It’s now. It’s crazy how blissful I am. I try to take so many photos and videos and backlog all of this because I want to hold on to every memory that I can. I don’t want to forget how effortlessly happy we are. I don’t want to forget the love and care my husband shows me on a daily basis. I don’t want to forget how I get annoyed that he doesn’t have an opinion, he always wants what I want- never puts his wants before mine. I don’t want to forget how he takes care of me - even when I don’t want it... doesn’t let me spend a dime whenever he can help it. I don’t want to forget that he’s put our whole team on his back and has held me down in ways nobody even knows. I don’t want to forget the times he goes out of his way to make me happy or the times he does the simplest things to make me smile or turn my day around. I don’t want to forget how he finds me in the middle of the night and puts his hand on me, or even his foot, to feel that I’m near. I don’t want to forget how i catch him looking for me whenever we’re apart. I don’t want to forget these blissful newlywed moments. They’ll be gone in a flash, I’m sure, but I’ll try and hold onto them for as long as I can and in any way that I can.

Flowers in New York City

He got game, Francisco Marin

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4:35 AM

I can’t sleep. I guess I’ve been tossing and turning. Bri woke up and just started staring at me and asking me what I was doing 😂 We readjusted, went from holding me to not and then out of nowhere he just starts rubbing my back for me to go to sleep 🥺 idk if my bar is low, but the simplest things make me the happiest.

There’s something captivating about watching your love take care of their body in practical little ways. I was watching my partner do their skincare routine tonight and I got so lost in their face and their body and their hair. I could stay in those moments forever. I feel the same way when I watch them eat or shower or engage in a hobby they love or even sleep because rest is another way to care for the body. Maybe I just love them so much that it feels great seeing them care for themself, loving on themself in the ways that I love them.

Me driving to Roanoke 

Soul