LYMI: For the rest of my life
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On July 30th of this year, I got married. It is, I admit, rolling off my tongue these days with so much frequency that it has begun to make everyone want to slap me. Just a little. No one actually has hauled off and done it yet. I am, as they say, a newlywed. I'm in my, I think they call it, honeymoon period. I get a buy. I get to talk about me.
Married life like-you-mean-it (LYMI) by author Joselin Linder. She previously blogged about her engagement with Gagging to the altar in February.
(Everyone asks - So how's married life? And I get to answer for a while with a lot of sentences that start with the word "we" or "I." And the best part is that when I stop for a breath, realize I've been talking for 15 minutes without changing the subject or breathing and politely rebound with, "And you? How are you?" They go, "Oh, fine...fine...so Tulum? How long was the Honeymoon?" And so back to me.)
The last time I guest blogged for Simply Leap I was in the throes of wedding panic, or more specifically, tulle and crinoline overload that inevitably accompanies a wedding. I am not a hearts-and-roses kind of girl. As I insisted then, it wasn't the commitment to the man, it was the Dan Fogelburg muzak that came with it.
But who am I kidding? It was also a little bit the commitment to the man.
I am thirty-six. My new husband (did someone say New Husband? Better shut up and listen!) is forty. No one had to sit us down and prepare us for our "wedding night" if you catch my drift.
We were both first timers in the game of forever, but multiple players in the get-together-breaking up dance.
There was good reason for this. Nothing, I repeat, nothing sounds good FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Seriously. If someone said I could bathe in chocolate forever? Once? Sure. Twice? Absolutely! Monthly? You bet. But fortherestofmylife? No thank you. Not even a little bit.
I love my husband. I think he is very awesome. Truly the right man for me. I am absolutely sure that if fortherestofmylife began today and ended at the end of September, I would be thrilled with my choice in a life partner.
But next September? In ten Septembers? Twenty? I don't know. I have trouble committing to a dinner selection. (If at 6PM I need a burger, by 6:05 I'm usually pretty sure I'd rather have Chinese.)
Now, having said all of that, I will point out the way in which this post began. I can't stop gushing about my husband. (Did she say, husband? Well look at you...) I think I love saying it, I love thinking about it. I love that the association is with this guy that I have known and loved for six years, lived with for three, and shared a dog with for two and a half.
If I make take a moment to get uncomfortably earnest here (no, seriously, skip to the next paragraph if this stuff makes your skin crawl) what I will say about what I have learned from my leap into marriage is that there is something pretty wonderful about making a promise, a fortherestofmylife promise, in front of my family, his family and all of our friends that I will try to create a life interwoven with his, that I will step up to the plate for him, and even wash several extra plates for him, that I will listen to him on his darkest days, and sometimes hold hands with him while we sleep. But what is even more incredible, is that moment, that cliché, wedding-y moment, that he makes the same promise back.
I am still the same girl who hated my floral wedding bouquet, but it turns out I love being married.
It just goes to show you, sometimes you have to leap into the most frothy of situations in order to realize that they are not so bad - And that they are even kind of great.