(no subject)
Before we got married, I'd pause from time to time and wonder if being married would feel different. I wasn't sure why it would - after all, we had the life together. We had the house, we had the cats, we'd been living together for years. Is a piece of paper going to make that big a difference in a reality that isn't glossed over by silly romantic notions?
Well, things definitely do feel different. It's not a glaring change, and I don't know whether it's the marriage or just the novelty of this new chapter, but it's definitely there. There is a feeling of something there, sort of like a shadow in your peripheral vision. You know it's there, it's just hard to figure out the shape and size of what you're seeing.
Mostly, it feels more fragile, more precious. We're going on much stricter diets after the holidays, not out of any sense of vanity, but because I'm terrified that one or both of us will die too soon, and then this magical little niche we've created will just be...gone. I'm reading a book called "The Memory Keeper's Daughter," and a parent dies, and it just made me think sadly about how if Kite and I have children, they will someday be without us, and their children will have children who won't even remember us as more than a name, an old story, perhaps some photographs, and we won't be there to watch them and share that with each other. I'm definitely feeling my own mortality a little more.
That's the double edge of getting married at this age. He and I have both come into our own, and I have definitely grown up a whole lot in the past 6 or 7 years, defining who I truly am. Had I gotten married at 21 or 25, I don't think I could be so happy or fulfilled in my choice of partner...how could I? But I would have had all those extra years with him. Ten years holds a lot of moments.
Anyway, there is a lovely ring to the word "husband," and I often address him as such when he calls from the road. "Husband!" I love hearing him introduce me as his wife. I get immense pleasure from hearing him compliment my work on planning our wedding, no matter how many other kind words are said about it. It makes my toes curl to hear that praise from his lips. I want to wrap myself around him and physically get inside his skin all at the same time. When I touch him, he seems a little more real, and when I look at him, my vision seems sharper than it was five weeks ago. I see him in closer detail. I watch him with the cats, and soft affection bubbles up inside me. I am more crazy in love with him than I have ever been.
So I've made this committment, to have and to hold, and so on and so forth, and that's a little bit scary, and a little bit exhilarating. I said this in my vows, and it's true: I hate committment, I hate not being able to sit on a fence and change my mind 83 times. There's no fence here, it's done. I can't just waltz away on a whim. Not that I could before, really...a house together means a bit of legal and financial entanglement, after all. But I stood up there in front of our family and I said I would spend the rest of my life with him, and I meant it then, and I still mean it now, and I suspect I will mean it for a very long time. More than the legal trappings that go with the whole thing, it's the emotional committment that is the most significant, and the most binding. I've said the words, I've made the promise, and it fills me up with joy instead of trepidation and angst.
I've done a terrible job of communicating all of this, but the past 30-odd days have been filled with fairly deep emotion and introspection, even for a girl who's emotional and introspective day to day, and I wanted to get it down in case it gets lost in mundane life.
Well, things definitely do feel different. It's not a glaring change, and I don't know whether it's the marriage or just the novelty of this new chapter, but it's definitely there. There is a feeling of something there, sort of like a shadow in your peripheral vision. You know it's there, it's just hard to figure out the shape and size of what you're seeing.
Mostly, it feels more fragile, more precious. We're going on much stricter diets after the holidays, not out of any sense of vanity, but because I'm terrified that one or both of us will die too soon, and then this magical little niche we've created will just be...gone. I'm reading a book called "The Memory Keeper's Daughter," and a parent dies, and it just made me think sadly about how if Kite and I have children, they will someday be without us, and their children will have children who won't even remember us as more than a name, an old story, perhaps some photographs, and we won't be there to watch them and share that with each other. I'm definitely feeling my own mortality a little more.
That's the double edge of getting married at this age. He and I have both come into our own, and I have definitely grown up a whole lot in the past 6 or 7 years, defining who I truly am. Had I gotten married at 21 or 25, I don't think I could be so happy or fulfilled in my choice of partner...how could I? But I would have had all those extra years with him. Ten years holds a lot of moments.
Anyway, there is a lovely ring to the word "husband," and I often address him as such when he calls from the road. "Husband!" I love hearing him introduce me as his wife. I get immense pleasure from hearing him compliment my work on planning our wedding, no matter how many other kind words are said about it. It makes my toes curl to hear that praise from his lips. I want to wrap myself around him and physically get inside his skin all at the same time. When I touch him, he seems a little more real, and when I look at him, my vision seems sharper than it was five weeks ago. I see him in closer detail. I watch him with the cats, and soft affection bubbles up inside me. I am more crazy in love with him than I have ever been.
So I've made this committment, to have and to hold, and so on and so forth, and that's a little bit scary, and a little bit exhilarating. I said this in my vows, and it's true: I hate committment, I hate not being able to sit on a fence and change my mind 83 times. There's no fence here, it's done. I can't just waltz away on a whim. Not that I could before, really...a house together means a bit of legal and financial entanglement, after all. But I stood up there in front of our family and I said I would spend the rest of my life with him, and I meant it then, and I still mean it now, and I suspect I will mean it for a very long time. More than the legal trappings that go with the whole thing, it's the emotional committment that is the most significant, and the most binding. I've said the words, I've made the promise, and it fills me up with joy instead of trepidation and angst.
I've done a terrible job of communicating all of this, but the past 30-odd days have been filled with fairly deep emotion and introspection, even for a girl who's emotional and introspective day to day, and I wanted to get it down in case it gets lost in mundane life.