Adventures in Married Life: Part 2

The main reason I want to keep a blog is not really about having other people read it.  For my whole life, I've kept journals and little notebooks with thoughts and lists, and it was always because I felt that I could better clarify the things in my head if I got them out of my head.  My blog is mostly about being an electronic version of those journals in that box upstairs, but it's also nice to be able to look back on and read all that stuff that was in my head those months or years before.

Standing here, thirty-seven days a newlywed, I want to keep up with the things I'm learning as we're making our way through this; it's the counselor part of me that wants to know when and how something changed.  At the end of past relationships, I grew by these evolutionary leaps that catapulted me into a healthier understanding of what it means to be in a relationship.  At the end of my last relationship before the Bobster, I realized that my search should be about both the chemistry and the checklist.  Years ago, I learned not to forsake all the people in my life for a new person, and sometime I realized that maybe there is a thing as a wrong time-right person, but if it's always the wrong time, it's the wrong person.  And somewhere I figured out that just because you care about someone doesn't mean you have to put up with their crap all the time.

These days, I'd like to learn things without such a dramatic prologue, and I'm doing pretty good so far.  As I mentioned before, Bobby and I have different sleep patterns- I consider 8am sleeping late, he prefers 11.  Yesterday morning I woke up, poked Bobby for a while before realizing he wasn't going to get up on my schedule and we were going to miss church.  (To be fair, he is home sick today and wasn't feeling good Saturday night, so he wasn't just being sleepy.)  Hopefully when our situation is different, I'll feel better about the difference in our sleep schedule; for now, though, I only see him a few days out of the week, so I consider all time available as precious time to be spent together.  Including 8am on a Sunday morning.  So at 9am, I'm sitting on the couch alone and whiny because I feel like I'm missing out on time with him.  It then occurred to me that since he wasn't going to get up for at least another two hours, why did I have to endure a self-pitying camp-out on the couch waiting for him to stir.  I call the Bestie, we drank coffee and played at Home Depot until noon.

The lesson to be learned was one that I should have remembered from the countless long-distance relationships I've endured in times past.  Just because we don't see each other as much as we like doesn't mean we have to be THISCLOSETHEWHOLETIME when we can.  Yes, it's nice, and I really wanted Bobby and I to eat breakfast and go to church and eat lunch together on the couch; but if we don't, it's not necessarily the end of the world.  It was better for both of us that I went and did my thing while he was asleep; I was happily attentive for the rest of the day instead of clingy and grumpy (two dwarves that camp out in my closet a lot).  The best part about being married is not having to worry about who's going to be my date to that wedding or hold my hand before a medical procedure or eat that pumpkin cheesecake I'm going to learn how to make.  Bobby's going to be there, even if it doesn't necessarily feel like that right now because when I get home most days, he's not.  But I have the next 60 years to spend with him, so it's not the end of our honeymoon if I miss out on two hours.  A very wise woman who makes the best cornbread and fried green tomatoes you'll ever eat once told me that the key to life is balance, and that means balancing our quality time when we're together, too.  Just not balancing how much cornbread I eat.  Because that stuff is delicious.

Adventures in Married Life

Three days until to twenty days in.  So here we are.  We survived wedding-ing, and I am extremely pleased to say that, with the exception of very minor issues, the whole thing went off without a hitch.  By the time we got to the end of the rehearsal dinner, my only hopes were that Bobby and I both arrived and the church didn't burn down; as both wishes were executed, I was a happy bride.

Twenty days in, we are organizing ourselves into married life.  One could even call them adventures.  My favorite adventure thus far has been the things Bobby and I have discovered about each other.  You see, before our honeymoon, the most consecutive days Bobby and I had spent together was six; with the days leading up to the wedding and the honeymoon, Bobby and I have now upped that count to thirteen.  It's (just) one of the terrible things about a long-distance relationship, but I did enjoy our honeymoon all the better for it.

This view helped as well.

Bobby has discovered that I have to be fed and watered every three hours or so; he, on the other hand, can eat three square meals a day and be content.  I discovered that Bobby has an incredibly strange sleeping schedule.  He prefers going to sleep at midnight or later, waking up around 9 or 10, and napping for an hour to two around 2 or 3.  I, on the other hand, go to sleep around 10 and wake up at 7 or 7:30.  I have also learned that Bobby does actually require sunscreen despite his lovely golden skin, lest that lovely golden skin turn bright pink.  We also learned that we have different methods of approaching free time.  I prefer to plan, to list, to schedule, to arrive on time, and to control.  Bobby prefers to do.  We're still learning how to happily balance each other out.


Other small things that have been interesting:

"Husband" and "wife" are still strange terms.  We're practicing, but we seem to perpetually be uncomfortable with our labels.

I have completely and utterly enjoyed my time at home post-wedding.  Because Bobby lives in a Troy, I am alone most or all of the evening.  This week I have gone grocery shopping, learned to broil a steak, found a recipe for my favorite Taziki Friday Pasta, read my book, moved most of my closet downstairs, and taken a bubble bath.

Bobby and I are much less stressed and therefore happier; we now get to enjoy each other's company without discussing one looming topic.

Thank-you notes are a very odd thing.  I can't come up with 75 original sayings for each one, but I'm worried about people feeling unappreciated if their card says the same as someone else's; I do genuinely mean the repeated part though.  I also don't like the "little house wife" feeling I get in describing my plans for these gifts.  For example: "Bobby's favorite food is soup, and I can't wait to serve my favorite Toscana soup in this new bowl."  It's not so bad writing it once, but since most everything I received was kitchen-y, writing cooking and baking excitement 50 times makes me feel so one-dimensional.  Eh.

I love our wedding rings.

That's all the adventures in married life I have for now.  Seeing as how we'll be doing this for 60 years, expect more to come.