Married Life
Here is my first entry as a married person. I suppose I should talk about how married life is SO DIFFERENT and I am SO DIFFERENT, and how being married has CHANGED SO MUCH.
But truthfully, it's not, I'm not, and it hasn't. I mean, it feels nice to know that James and I are married. I love him and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. But that would have happened whether we were married or not. It seems the same to me, other than the nice feeling, maybe because I knew I would marry him right away, and we have been living together for as long as we've been together, and we have owned a house together for a few months now. But it doesn't feel very different.
I'm glad to have the wedding over with. It was a huge source of stress. At the same time, it kind of enabled me to avoid other things that were less important in comparison--like keeping the house clean and doing yard work. But now everything is back to normal and I have all the old things to worry about.
One thing that's different is the whole KIDS issue. Any of you who know me very well might suspect that I would have kids right away, because I love kids and I've always wanted to have them, more than I wanted anything else in my whole life. But at some point, in the past six months, when we were planning the wedding and moving, I realized that I don't want kids until I have organized our house. This might seem like a stupid prerequisite, unrelated to raising a child at all, but I suppose I should thank the kitties. We got them in the beginning of . . . July, right when we were moving into the new house, and owning them made me realize that they would find every little spot that wasn't organized and make a total mess out of it. I realized that a baby would be 100 times worse, and I decided then and there that we would not have kids until the house was organized. Perhaps for those of you who don't often come to our house, you might think that this is something that is easily achievable. But you would be wrong. Our last house, which was less than half as big as this one, took us a year to organize--well, at least nine months. I was reluctant to move when I had just achieved such a state, but things happen that you can't predict understand or deny. So we moved and now things are in complete disorder once again.
I guess the problem might be that I hate throwing things away. I have a collection of safety pins, paper clips, thumb tacks, rubber bands, wrapping paper, boxes . . . lots of things that people would just throw away. Then there's the old stuff, still perfectly useful, that I can't seem to part with or admit that we can't use--clothes, blankets, towels, dishes, silverware, furniture . . . really there's no way to get across how difficult I make things for myself, but I just refuse to admit that it would be "better" to just throw all this stuff away--I just can't be that wasteful. It would be better to find someone who could use it, or organize it and store it until such a person can be found.
There is a way to organize this stuff so that it will be useful in the long run, it just takes a lot of time and energy. So getting back to the kids issue. I don't want to have kids until that happens. However, I can't seem to avoid the issue as I could BEFORE me and James got married. Now, it would be perfectly acceptable for us to have kids, and some people in our lives seem to think that we should do it RIGHT AWAY, WHY WAIT???
As I said, I don't want to do it until the house is organized, but it's weird. I do want it/them more than I did before we were married. In some sense, I feel like I want them BECAUSE it doesn't feel any different, because being married feels the same. It's as if I am looking for something which will transform us into adults, force us to be more responsible and enable us to be . . . . well, different. However, this is no reason to have kids, and it won't be my reason.
My mother, on the other hand, pushes strongly that we should wait as long as we can, which I appreciate in the large crowd of friends and family who seem to take it for granted that we would make one right away. It's A PERSON, PEOPLE. A PERSON. WE CAN'T--we shouldn't--just make one because we are married, or just because of anything. We should make one because he or she wants to be born. And he or she doesn't--not now. I know it, I feel it.
Anyway, this is kind of rambling.
But truthfully, it's not, I'm not, and it hasn't. I mean, it feels nice to know that James and I are married. I love him and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. But that would have happened whether we were married or not. It seems the same to me, other than the nice feeling, maybe because I knew I would marry him right away, and we have been living together for as long as we've been together, and we have owned a house together for a few months now. But it doesn't feel very different.
I'm glad to have the wedding over with. It was a huge source of stress. At the same time, it kind of enabled me to avoid other things that were less important in comparison--like keeping the house clean and doing yard work. But now everything is back to normal and I have all the old things to worry about.
One thing that's different is the whole KIDS issue. Any of you who know me very well might suspect that I would have kids right away, because I love kids and I've always wanted to have them, more than I wanted anything else in my whole life. But at some point, in the past six months, when we were planning the wedding and moving, I realized that I don't want kids until I have organized our house. This might seem like a stupid prerequisite, unrelated to raising a child at all, but I suppose I should thank the kitties. We got them in the beginning of . . . July, right when we were moving into the new house, and owning them made me realize that they would find every little spot that wasn't organized and make a total mess out of it. I realized that a baby would be 100 times worse, and I decided then and there that we would not have kids until the house was organized. Perhaps for those of you who don't often come to our house, you might think that this is something that is easily achievable. But you would be wrong. Our last house, which was less than half as big as this one, took us a year to organize--well, at least nine months. I was reluctant to move when I had just achieved such a state, but things happen that you can't predict understand or deny. So we moved and now things are in complete disorder once again.
I guess the problem might be that I hate throwing things away. I have a collection of safety pins, paper clips, thumb tacks, rubber bands, wrapping paper, boxes . . . lots of things that people would just throw away. Then there's the old stuff, still perfectly useful, that I can't seem to part with or admit that we can't use--clothes, blankets, towels, dishes, silverware, furniture . . . really there's no way to get across how difficult I make things for myself, but I just refuse to admit that it would be "better" to just throw all this stuff away--I just can't be that wasteful. It would be better to find someone who could use it, or organize it and store it until such a person can be found.
There is a way to organize this stuff so that it will be useful in the long run, it just takes a lot of time and energy. So getting back to the kids issue. I don't want to have kids until that happens. However, I can't seem to avoid the issue as I could BEFORE me and James got married. Now, it would be perfectly acceptable for us to have kids, and some people in our lives seem to think that we should do it RIGHT AWAY, WHY WAIT???
As I said, I don't want to do it until the house is organized, but it's weird. I do want it/them more than I did before we were married. In some sense, I feel like I want them BECAUSE it doesn't feel any different, because being married feels the same. It's as if I am looking for something which will transform us into adults, force us to be more responsible and enable us to be . . . . well, different. However, this is no reason to have kids, and it won't be my reason.
My mother, on the other hand, pushes strongly that we should wait as long as we can, which I appreciate in the large crowd of friends and family who seem to take it for granted that we would make one right away. It's A PERSON, PEOPLE. A PERSON. WE CAN'T--we shouldn't--just make one because we are married, or just because of anything. We should make one because he or she wants to be born. And he or she doesn't--not now. I know it, I feel it.
Anyway, this is kind of rambling.