It was a Good Year.

It was a new year.

In the different sense.
There were so many changes, and so many things to adjust to.

My mum doesn’t wash my clothes anymore. And I can’t just leave my dishes about the place, because you actually run out of plates. And forks, usually first.
I have no idea why we seem to have so few forks. Or why it took either of us so long to get some more out of the three or four different sets of beautiful and somewhat expensive silver cutlery that were graciously given to us. Along with the four different dinner sets, fifteen odd wine glasses and one million and five cake platters.
We had so, so many gifts. We still have gift cards, unspent, a year on. It does get to the point where you have nothing left to buy.

It was a good year.
There was a lot to learn. Jem and I had spent plenty of time together, one on one, but our first year seemed less like the first wonderful steps in a lifetime of marriage and more like a crash course in tolerance, economic drainage and family relations.
It’s probably taken a year to reconnect with friends.
Nice to find out in our modern secularised society that people actually respect marriage. People gave us space- it didn’t matter if we were late, or if we tended to be a bit flakey when it came to actually attending functions- (Or at least, everyone but the football club) we were newlyweds, and we had our own agenda.
It more difficult establish to some people that yes, things have changed in a big kind of way, but we still like them, and seriously value the part they play in our lives.

If marriage was respected by some, it was certainly feared by others.
I still can’t quite work out the polite and truthful response to a person who is amazed at how I could be ready to commit to one person at such a young age, when all they do is live with/bear or raise children with/buy a house with/sleep with their boyfriend, girlfriend or partner. Trust, it seems, is expressed in different ways for different people.

Trust…
Trust is both a wonderful aspect to the love we share and an enormous weight to carry. If I am trusted with not just someone’s heart, but someone’s future, then I’d sure better prove myself trustworthy.
Being trustworthy is difficult when you’re also impulsive, somewhat immature person who is prone to occasional bouts of selfishness and sprouts inappropriate humour in serious situations.
And I’m supposed to be the head of the house.

Am, I mean.
I am the head of the house.
My house.
It’s tricky. It’s My Household, My Wife, Our Dog and Our Savings. Not to mention Our Future.

All new things.

This year has brought about the realisation that my life is going somewhere, and regardless of whether or not I know where that is, I’m going there with my wife.

And I really, really like her.

That, I mean. I love her, I like that statement.

It was a good year, two thousand and nine.

The first year of our marriage.

Advertisement