This

I’d read that the first few years of marriage can be an incredibly difficult adjustment, but my experience has been exactly the opposite. Much of the anxiety (not all, but most) that use to plague me has evaporated and dissolved. The unspoken question of where things are going has been answered, and answered in the best possible way. The wedding to-do lists have been burned in a mental bonfire and the few tiny disappointments of the wedding process and the actual day are all but forgotten (except for the rain that drove our lovely terrace cocktail hour indoors, I’m still a teensy bit sad about that). All that remains of the hours spent planning and organizing are memories and photos, enhanced by the rose-colored glow of nostalgia.

Aside from the additional pieces of jewelry on our left hands, our lives together didn’t change all that much. We merged our car insurances and our cell phone plans. I visited the social security office and got a card with a new last name on it. Other than that, things stayed the same.

And yet, everything shifted. I used to suffer immensely from a feeling of having no footing and no direction. I felt like a waste of potential for having a job instead of a career, for not being interested in law school or business school or anything, really, that didn’t occur on the weekends. I drifted, unable to make myself choose a direction. And while I still work at the same job, still live in the same house, still have the same life, essentially, I don’t feel like I’m drifting and searching anymore.

It used to drive me crazy when people would ask when we were going to get married already, as if it were any of their business. People mean well, I know, but these questions are obnoxious. It made me almost as angry when near-strangers would ask how the wedding plans were coming only to voice disapproval at whatever response I gave.  What do you mean you don't have a florist booked?  What do you mean you haven't had a bridal shower?  There is always an undercurrent of impatience in those queries, and I always felt like the last thing I needed was to have some outside party insinuate that I was doing things wrong. I expected to feel the same way about the meaningless “how’s married life” question. But I don’t! I don’t mind it at all. Married life is awesome, I happily reply.

I don’t know exactly what it is. The sense of permanence, of groundedness. I still worry about lots of things. I worry about the economy, I worry about money. I worry about asteroids hitting the moon and I worry about how writers of Lost are possibly going to wrap up all those crazy parallel universes. But I find immense comfort knowing that whatever happens, we’ll still have this.

And this, this life together, is exactly what I've been drifting towards all these years.

Comments

[Clare]

beautiful post!

[RA]

Lovely.

How do people respond when you say married life is awesome? I find that people hope for some kind of dig about how it wasn't what I expected or that it's so much harder than I thought it would be.

[Janssen]

What a wonderful wonderful post. Also, sorry to give you asteroid worries. As if LOST wasn't enough to give you ulcers.

[Nothing But Bonfires]

Ah, wedding BFF, we are so aligned.

[Tess]

I love this. I'm glad married life is awesome for you. :)

[-R-]

I'm glad you are so happy.

I love the photo!

[Life of a Doctor's Wife]

What a sweet post! I feel exactly the same way - that sense of being grounded, that feeling of purpose, of moving forward together.

Beautiful picture!

[beth]

lovely post. and btw, fuck lost. I am still watcihng, but am sort of waiting for it to end the whole time so that I can either go to bed or watch my dvr'ed Bravo reality shows.

[Mom]

It couldn't make me happier to read how happy you are!

[Ashley, the Accidental Olympian]

Wonderful post. Those feelings of being lost, drifting, being without an anchor, and that HORRIBLE question of, "When are you getting married," follow me around constantly.

It's nice to hear someone has so seamlessly dodged them.

[Stephanie]

Marriage is awesome. Plain and simple. Living together is good but there is somehow something a bit better about being married. And I never thought there would be.

[...love Maegan]

THIS is a cute post ...I love being married.

[Lindsey]

YES! I agree completely with your feelings about marriage! There is this unexplainable shift, and yet on a day to day basis, not much has changed at all.

[acai maxx]

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