All week I've been saying, "This time last year I was ...." and remembering how calm yet incredibly hectic the days before our wedding was. In some ways it's hard to believe it's already been a year yet in other ways it feels like we've been married for at least three.
In the past year we've fallen in LOVE with Hawaii. We survived our first married holidays. We spent one month looking for a house then bought our first house on Valentine's Day. We vacationed with my parents for a week at the beach. We moved into our new house.I graduated with my Master's Degree. I quit my very first teaching job, packed everything up, moved it and started at a new school closer to home. We took a road trip across the state. We hosted an Irish counselor for the entire month of July. We've painted and decorated our new home. You think we've been busy? Life is finally starting to slow down for us. We really are enjoying just working and coming home to hang with the dogs. We are doing whatever we want to do for the first time in our lives and it's so nice. It's nice to have "us" time and we aren't planning on introducing any other variables into our equation of life for a few more years. [How's that for the math teacher in me?!]
Is it bad that I already look back at our wedding pictures and think "Gosh we looked so young!"? I feel like in the past year we both have really grown up. We've always been way more mature than others our age but this whole marriage thing has really helped us "grow up." The first year of marriage hasn't been all cupcakes and unicorns... marriage is hard work and that's something we're still learning. Having a mom who gets couples divorced for a living I have learned quite a bit about marriage from her. Marriage requires great and total commitment from both parties. It is very different from dating or even living together... A friend of ours posted on Facebook recently that people who lived together before marriage were more likely to split up than people who didn't live together. One thing I've learned this year: I don't think it matters either way. It's about the couple's commitment to each other, communication, and trust. If you don't carve out time just to be with each other the relationship (like any relationship) will deteriorate. I'm not saying you spend every waking moment together (because I would seriously go crazy) and it is incredibly important to still have your "girl time" but dates are a good thing. That's what I've learned this year. I'm excited to see what I learn in the next.
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