Counting

I got to spend the weekend before the wedding with my fantastic sister. She moved to Minneapolis last summer – the first of us to truly leave the nest – and I got to fly out to visit her for one day before we road-tripped home. Nearly twelve hours of driving, done in one day, sped along the way by musicals and Disney music. We were so proud.

That girl then took over as the best maid of honor a bride could ask for. She threw a ballin’ bachelorette party: she hired a limo, invited a few of my closest friends out for dinner at Soho (incredible Japanese restaurant, ask about the thick noodles and their blackberry sangria), then an evening at Escape the Room (they lock you in a themed room and you have to follow the clues to find your way out in an hour – so much fun). I knew I didn’t want the traditional dinner-at-the-Cheesecake-Factory routine, and she took it and ran with it. And everybody that went had a great time!

As our resident stage manager we charged her with setting up the main attraction for the ceremony: the pipe-and-drape background. And for the first time in a really long time the Theatre Twins were back in action, fighting with strands of white twinkle lights that are really fickle and don’t want to work unless you ask them nicely, hoisting metals poles twelve feet in the air and then bringing them back down because OH MY GOD THE LIGHTS DON’T REACH THE FLOOR. It brought me back to our theatre days at college when she’d run around with a binder and a coffee and I’d follow her in her stage-manager duties before our call time that evening. And it felt so good to be back working with her.

See, that’s what’s been so strange about her living so far away: we’ve never had that before. When we went to college I was only there by myself for a year, and even then it was only forty minutes away so I was home all the time on the weekends. Then when she finally got there we ran in some of the same circles, worked on the same shows, had countless dinner and let’s-say-we’re-going-to-the-gym-but-really-sit-and-watch-a-movie-in-your-dorm dates. We’ve really never been apart; our lives have been pretty similar.

It was so different to be in Minneapolis and to be introduced to the new life she’s built a thousand miles away from the familiar where I stayed. “This is my house that I live with people that were strangers a year ago, this is the apartment that I’m about to move into with the roommate that I found, this is the place where I work, this is where I’m starting a new job soon, let me take you to this great little bar I love.” (It was great – nothing like Blue Moon and deep-fried cheese curds to warm your heart on a cold April day.) She packed her stuff, drove there alone, and made herself a life that, for a twenty-two-year-old, is pretty put-together. Just because she wanted to. She’s a theatre major so she does a lot of short-term work with unpredictable hours and heavy workloads – and she’s great at it. She’s constantly hunting, applying, fighting for more work, because she knows that’s the only way she’ll achieve her dreams of going to New York someday and working in a coveted position on Broadway.

In her maid-of-honor speech she called me “brave” and I remember giving her this funny look. While she admires me for the choices I’ve made I sit back in amazement at the future she’s developing for herself. She’s not afraid to go wherever she needs to to make her dreams a reality, but she maintains that individuality that makes her my best friend. She knows what she thinks and she stands up for what she believes, regardless of who might disagree. She is kind to strangers and good with little kids but has the guts to tell someone that they’re not doing what they’re supposed to. She is loved and respected by the people who have taken over as her Minnesota family.

She’s always been the brave one, the one I’ve watched and tried to imitate for years. I focus more on being my own person now rather than her shadow, but I still watch in awe and respect as she becomes more and more successful, more and more happy, more and more independent. I am so proud of her, and I was beyond blessed to spend so much time with her this past month.

Also, I think another road trip should be in the works. Because that was a blast and a half.

Sand

As of tomorrow, we will have been married for two weeks. And what a two weeks it’s been. The honeymoon was awesome: three days up and down the Pigeon Forge/Sevierville/Gatlinburg parkways visiting wineries and distilleries, hiking in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park (saw my first black bear), eating delicious food (#AppleBarn), enjoying a mountain view from our balcony hot tub, laying in bed drinking beer and watching TV knowing that we had absolutely nothing else that we should be doing. Exactly what we needed.

And then we came home and both of us got a stomach virus. Nothing like “I threw up in the shower” to let you know the honeymoon’s over.

And so life goes on. He went back to work, I went back to work, we got groceries, I made pork in the crockpot on Wednesday. Nothing’s different.

Marriage is the most special of bonds. There is one person in the whole world who knows me the way Joey does, the same can be said of him. Your relationship must be nurtured daily for it to last, and it is hard, unnatural, dedicated work. We stood in front of our family and friends and vowed to stick this thing out, come hell or high water. And we know that keeping that sacred promise will take some effort.

But you know what? Marriage is also not that big a deal. It feels so far like living life, except the “home” I go back to every night is our own and I have a man in my bed when I wake up every morning. Bills still have to be paid, we still can’t agree on what to watch on TV at night, and that full hamper means you should probably do laundry.

I sound a little melancholy when I talk about it, but this is what I’ve been saying for months: at the end of the wedding, you’re left with a marriage. The planning is done, the frills have fallen away, we have our cake in the freezer; and life went back to normal. A somewhat slow normal, it seems like, since we don’t have a cataclysmic date marked on the calendar anymore.

Hey, I said I was waiting for the day when I could lay on the couch and know that I had nothing else that I should be doing.

My mom and I are honoring our Friday night tradition tonight since Joey’s out of town – ordering pizza and binging “Say Yes to the Dress” on TLC (Friday is bride day!) – but it doesn’t feel the same to watch it anymore. They don’t tell you that you’ll wear that special dress that was destined for you for about six hours, and then you’ll get on with your life again. It’s not the glamorous side of weddings, so of course they don’t mention it on a show bent toward the multi-million-dollar wedding industry. So I’m saying it now. To those of you who crave marriage as a filling of some void you feel, it won’t fix it. It’s like leaving your dishwasher full of dirty dishes and going on vacation: you feel great for the week that you sit on the beach, but your dishes are still there when you get home. Marriage is wonderful, yes; and I’m actually really happy that we had the ceremony, even after months of asking, “Are you ready to elope yet?” But it is not the end-all-be-all. Joey still has things that he wants to do: he didn’t become immediately fulfilled when he became a husband. And I still have dreams of being a published author: I didn’t put those on a shelf after I became a Mrs.

Marriage is a coming together of two individual people who should fight to maintain their individuality – marriage is not a call to become the mirror image of the person you married. You must continue to grow and develop as a person, and your spouse will do the same. The thing that makes it so special is that you will do this together, building each other up, changing against one another, with no expectation of “I’m not dealing with this anymore” if suddenly you wake up and realize that the person you married isn’t the person in bed next to you anymore. (I mean, unless your spouse turns into a serial killer, this might pose a problem.) Who else in all the world do you get to do that with?

You have a heavy responsibility in front of you if you’re contemplating a walk down the aisle. And it is a sacred vow that should not by any means be taken lightly. But there’s no need to take it so seriously. Unless you’re marrying a marriage expert (which, I’m pretty sure, don’t exist), you are not expected to have it all figured out. The first little bit will be rocky as you continue to work out each other’s roles and expectations – you can talk about it all you want before you tie the knot, but all that talk means nothing until you put it into practice. This is OK. Be open with each other about likes and dislikes, talk about what works and what doesn’t. That’s what makes it fun: you develop your marriage into your own, without having to look exactly like somebody else’s marriage. Your marriage is as unique as the two people who have created it – nurture it as such.

I posted a question on Facebook a few months about “keeping God at the center of your marriage” – everybody says that’s important but they never really explain what that means. And in her wedding card to us my roommate’s mom included the best explanation I’ve ever heard. She presented it like a line:

HUSBAND          GOD          WIFE

As I, woman, go closer to my God, I am simultaneously moving closer to my husband. This is why a growing relationship with God is crucial in a God-honoring marriage, and if your spouse is of the same mindset, he won’t mind playing second fiddle to God the Father (as you shouldn’t either). You also notice that, to see your spouse, you have to look through God, which means seeing your spouse – the inherently flawed person that he or she is – the way that God sees them. God overlooks their eccentricities and quirks and loves them regardless, choosing instead to see the treasure that they are, worthy of unconditional love whether they don’t mow the grass right when you ask or load the dishwasher differently than you. It makes those little things that get under your skin seem not so important, and not so detrimental to a flourishing relationship.

Dear friends, I’m not an expert by any means: like I said, we’ve only been married for two weeks. But this is what I’ve found so far in only two short weeks. And I cannot wait to see what the rest of our future has in store.