First Year of Marriage

Whoever said the first year of marriage is the most difficult clearly never dated Jk Stewart. Because 8 years of just plain hard work and prayer has made this 9th year together the most beautiful of all.
There is something intimately transforming about committing yourself entirely to one another and facing the world always knowing you have your one beside you. The wedding, the moving in together, the honeymoon, the days of coming home from work and spending the rest of the night with one another didn't take that much getting used to, really--it's just this wonderful culmination of what everything was leading up to. And finally everything just felt how it always seemed it should.

That doesn't mean the year was without its tiny trials and days filled with learning new things about each other.

Like the time we got into an argument about Once Upon a Time and Jk kicked a hole in the wall.

Or the time he spent way too much time working in the hot garage and ended up throwing a hammer through the door (my mom so humorously suggested the boy was just trying to be like Thor).

And what about the time I tried to give Jk the silent treatment for all of 2 hours because he wasn't too keen on eating the way-too-old crab dish I made.

Or when I locked my self in our bedroom only to have my pouting be horribly thwarted by the fact we have keys stored above the outside of all our doors.

And I've learned that Jk is actually a little afraid of flying, and that he especially hates moving furniture, that he is incredible at making up his own recipes from a variety of sources, and he's actually very good at cleaning up as long as no body asks him to. I learned that he worries terribly when our cat doesn't come home right away and that he likes to reset his alarm at least twice.

Jk taught me how to mow our lawn, how to list things on ebay and how to be alright with having an unproductive day (or hour).

But the biggest change in my life during this first year of marriage is how much more I've grown into the me-est me. Jk lets me paint on walls, waits around while I draw up elaborate pictures on the chalkboard, reads every chapter I write, helps me plan out unfinished plot outlines, tells me to stop working and go outside, tackles turning our house into Hogwarts, reminds me to pray, and forces me to sleep in.

So forgive me if this post is overly optimistic about the initial year of marriage.

We worry about bills and saving and the weird smell in our basement and the giant thistles that appear in our backyard and what to have for dinner and why the car isn't starting. But the joy of doing it all together and the memories of making it through all the difficult times previously, makes everything pretty much perfect.