lately léna

You know what came by and went completely without notice? Conrad’s and my six-month wedding anniversary!

Ok, so six months is not thaaaat long…but it’s the longest I’ve ever been married! Haaaaa – haaa.
In honor of our six months as official husband and wife, I want to share with you some of the most important the things I’ve learned from marriage thus far ❤

1. Saying “my husband” is still very weird.
Yeah, still not used to it! It took me about a year to get used to saying “fiance”, and so I think it will take a while for this one. Every time I say it, I get a little thrill, and my brain goes, “Whaaaaaat? MY husband??? I have a HUSBAND?? Weird!!”. Even weirder is getting to say things like, “my brother-in-law”, and “my husband’s best friend”. I don’t know why, but it just feels so strange. A good strange, but strange nonetheless.

2. I still don’t feel like an adult
Growing up, I always equated marriage with adulthood, but saying those vows oddly did not magically transform me and Conrad into proper ‘adults’. We’re still us – good at some things (like making awesome margaritas), bad at others (like remembering important deadlines), and still trying to figure out what it means to be a responsible, functional human in the world. So if you’re banking on marriage to turn you into a full-blown grown-up, you’re in for a bit of a surprise!

3. Your biggest job is to be each other’s cheerleaders
This is true of most relationships, but I’ve found that it changes slightly with marriage. Before Conrad and I were married, I ‘belonged’ more to my immediate family, meaning if I needed help, comforting, praise, etc., I’d turn to them first. They were what I’d known as home for my entire life. That changed slowly throughout our relationship (and especially when Tobias died), but marriage really cemented the fact that now we belong to each other. Our families will always be there, and we’ll always be a part of them, but we also created a new family, and now we have a responsibility to support each other as much as possible.

4. Everyone is wondering about babies
I have to say, it is a BIT depressing that the second we got married, we got so many questions about babies. Is that all that comes after marriage? What if we don’t want babies? What if we can’t have babies? Obviously, I know most people asking are not trying to be insensitive and are genuinely curious, but I find it interesting how once you have reached a certain life ‘milestone’ (be it graduation, your first real job, marriage, whatever), everyone immediately starts to jump on what’s next. Can’t we be content for more than two seconds before jumping into the next thing? We just want to enjoy being married for now!

5. Post-wedding blues are a real thing
As un-wedding-y as I am, I was not prepared for emotional lows that followed the fun and joy of our wedding. While we both felt a certain degree of relief for all of it to finally be over (no more planning, no more stressing no more big decisions to be made!), I found myself wishing we could do it all over again, and being sad that it went by so fast.  I felt better once I started planning other fun things to look forward to, like trips or parties, but the intensity of the wedding planning followed by absolutely no plans was an experience that left me feeling oddly sad and nostalgic. It was something I was definitely not expecting, so it really caught me by surprise.

6. Having time apart is just as important as time together
Again, this one’s not really marriage-specific, but I have learned throughout my relationship with Conrad that constant ‘togetherness’ is not necessarily a good thing. I love my husband and love spending time with him, but I need my own space from time to time. We like different things, we have separate friends, and we need the space to enjoy those things. This does not change just because you are married. In fact, being your own separate person is even MORE important once married! I’m very lucky because Conrad understands how important this is. He’s happy to see me go off and do things on my own or with friends, and vice versa., especially because when we’re apart, we actually miss each other! (Apologies for the mushiness…)

Of course, I’ve learned other things (like to check the toilet seat status before I sit down; you know, the standard stuff), but these are the ones that have been the most interesting to me so far. If I can convince him, I’d love to get Conrad to write one of these posts to get his perspective, so stick around to see if that works out.

Hope you all have a great Wednesday!

xxLena