A Word of Warning

I am at the Garden State point in my life.

This statement is utterly pointless if you have not seen this movie. But if you're reading this blog, then, how have you not seen this movie? But for a little clarification, this is what I mean.

You're almost to that adult stage. You've had your first real jobs. You have to pay bills, buy insurance, get your taxes done, think about investing for the future a little. But, you're not real important in your job. Your entry level or a little above. You don't necessarily live at home, but sometimes, part of you wants to run to the parent you would go to for problems. You could think marriage, but the responsibility of actually being a parent scares you beyond belief.

It's the anticipation of what is to come. That's what this part of life is. You long for the carefree days of school where your biggest headache was that math problem that seemed impossible on your algebra class and the boy you have a big crush on saw you with snot dripping out of your nose when you laughed to hard in the cafeteria. Granted, those were big problems back then. But I'd rather worry about snot running out my nose than paying my insurance bill, making rent, and wondering what kind of job my husband's going to have.

I'm really scared.

That wasn't the thought behind this entry. This is kind of just how my mind went. I was originally going to write about how marriage is harder than I expected. Even for a couple like us who have been together for a long time and really genuinely love each other.

But my mind keeps wandering.

My mind is so focused on the fact that I don't know what is to come. That is absolutely frightening to me. I feel like I'm just kind of floating. I'm not fully any place. And it's like purgatory. And the idea behind purgatory is truly my hell.

Perhaps when my hormones get back to normal I won't feel like this. If my hormones every get back to normal.

Warning: This is Slightly TMI, but it's my blog, so get over it.

So we had our first pregnancy scare.

You think a girl who's been on birth control for well over ten years wouldn't have much of a problem with it. But I just switched from the ring. My period wouldn't come until the day before I was supposed to put the new one in, obviously not normal. So I switched back to the pill.

Well, in the midst of trying to pack everything for the honeymoon, I left my pack of pills at home. Yeah, I know, "ahh!". But, we had plenty of condoms and used one everytime. And really, I only missed two days of the pill, so it wasn't a big deal.

We were well aware that most women tend to get a UTI from the honeymoon, especially girls who have never had sex before and then go hog wild, so we got cranberry pills and I took at least two a day. UTI never happened. But I developed a nice yeast infection. So I took some Monistat and all was well.

Just a word of warning, Monistat weakens a condom and compromises the medicine in spermicide (which is on most condoms). So we had to take some emergency contraceptive to make sure everything was okay.

Well, I had been off the pill for seven days, time to start my new pack. No period. So, of course we freak out. Sean calls a pharmacist to see if this is normal. They said to wait a couple days.

Since it hadn't come yet, and the mood struck, we decided to have some fun. Except, that's when my period decided to show up. Yeah, but, answered prayers.

So we got a bunch of firsts. And hopefully the lasts for a while. Well, except my period. I'll be okay if I have those once a month....

At Sean's graduation in December, they had a really great speaker.

One thing she said has really stuck out in my mind. She said that twenty something years ago, their parents had learned what it meant to have their heart leave their body and walk around and trust that it would be okay. That when a child is born, they take their parents hearts and become a part of them. A part of them that they can't control and isn't quite understood on the part of the person they gave it to.

That simple statement made so much sense.

I understand why my mom would worry. Why she wanted to know where I was going, who I was going to be with, when I want to be home. And why when I walked down the aisle she was crying tears of joy, but also tears of loss.

Because now I've let my heart leave me and walk around outside of my body.

Maybe not in the same connection. I mean, if I had someone growing inside me for nine miserable months, it's obviously no where close to the relationship of man and wife. But in marriage, you choose that person. You can decide who you give your heart to. And if you choose wisely, you don't need to worry about them ever doing anything purposefully to hurt you. You don't always have that luxury with a child who has yet to understand what you feel.

But when it comes to hurting, the person you've given your heart to can do it without any control.

It's icy out. Sean got a call asking to come in to work third shift. I told him to go ahead and work half, 10p-2a, so we could still make it to church. But when I think about him driving home past 2a, my heart takes residence in my throat. It's all those little things. The things you can't control. The things that are other people's faults. Those things hurt my heart. They make me afraid. Because if I lost him, I would lose my heart. And if I lose my heart, my mother will lose hers as well.

And I didn't feel this when I first told Sean I loved him.

I loved him, yes. But not like this. I loved him with that mixture of puppy love, lust, excitement, and hope of what is to come. I love him now, with a little bit of those. I still get so excited to see him when he comes home or meets me for lunch at work. It makes me smile a little more. But my love for him is so much deeper. I still have that young, passionate love. But I think we both feel a deep companionship love. The kind I think you need to have in order to have a successful marriage. Because that's the love that let's a marriage last.

The question remains though. If I'm feeling this now. Just short of three years of Sean being my significant other. How much more will it be ten, twenty, fifty years from now?

And as exciting as that is, to be able to claim that we've experienced that kind of love, it scares me. It scares me that one of us will eventually be without that kind of love. And although that's a long way away, when my heart leaps into my throat on nights like this, sometimes my mind wanders to those thoughts.

I am married!

Man, I really had my doubts about everything coming together. Not about my husband of course. Don't ever get that idea. I love him to death. He is my rock, my laughter, my comfort, my swift kick in the pants when I need it. But just about everything else about the wedding, I wasn't sure how it was going to play out. I was literally folding programs midnight before the wedding. But it looked good. Simple, but good. What we wanted.

Married life is good. Adjustments are always to be expected. But it's going fairly smoothly.

It's interesting how much you assume some things are a given, but them you starting living with someone else, it's shows you how much it isn't a given. Everything from the toilet seat, the bed being made, using the dishwasher. It's not anything you can't get over, just something to get adjusted to.

A lot of wedding pictures have been rolling in. I love how a lot of them have turned out. I'm glad it was a beautiful day. We got some really great pictures outside. I really wanted outside pictures. The only sad thing was the fact that my theme didn't correlate with the sunny skies and balmy 60 degrees outside. Snowflakes did look slightly silly. But who would've thought that December 30th wouldn't have brought ice and cold?

I need to get back into working out.

I always tried to at least go to yoga every week, let along make it to the gym to get in some cardio. Last week I didn't even manage to make it to yoga. We made so many precautions that I wouldn't get a UTI. In the end, it resulted in a yeast infection. (Sorry for gross details) You don't feel like stretching in odd ways, let alone sweating when that's going on. Hopefully the period that is to come this week won't be so bad with trying to work out again.

I really want Sean and I to start our lives together healthy and happy.

Happy is taken care of. We have so much love and affection for each other that it could fill a whole room with happiness. Healthy, well, once we can conquer our love of bad for us foods, we'll be on the right track. I think we both like working out. It makes us feel good. But man, we love food.

My new thing for Food Network doesn't help. I love watching it. I take pride in cooking a really good meal. One that takes a little more than opening a box and following the directions. Granted, I don't want it to complicated. A meal we'll down in twenty minutes isn't worth hours and hours of labor. But crafting something that just melts in your mouth that'll take about 60 minutes, that I love doing.

But, we need to go to bed soon. Sean has an interview for the management trainee program with Walgreens tomorrow morning in Conway. That's also VERY exciting. A lot of our future lies in tomorrow. And I need to be at work tomorrow at 8am.

So this is where I bring this to a close.