Sunday, August 22, 2010

The Post-Wedding Blues

Seems like an odd title, doesn't it?  The post-wedding blues...what does that mean?  Well, I'll tell you.

It's like that feeling after you go to summer camp and spend a whole week (or two) with good friends, going swimming, hiking, running, singing, playing pranks, and then you go home and you're depressed because you miss being with great people all the time and instead you're alone on your couch.  You're coming down from the summer camp 'high'.  That's exactly what it feels like now.

Weddings go way too fast.  Especially given the amount of time put in to them, they go way too fast.  All of our best friends and family flew in to town and it was a crazy whirlwind of fun, celebration and emotion and then they were gone!  I'm still processing all of that.  What's made it even more difficult is that Micael and I went straight back to work after the wedding--we won't go on our honeymoon until September 4--so we still haven't spent much time together as husband and wife yet.

However, all of that said, these 'blues' are fleeting.  I keep getting the question--How is wedded life?  And the immediate answer...it is wonderful.  Not so much because the wedding changed anything between us, but actually because the wedding having passed, it's given us back to one another.  No more planning, no more stress and anticipation, Micael comes home at the end of the day or I get back from the restaurant and we sit together, eat dinner, watch a movie, joke and laugh about nothing.  Just like it was, we were, before we got engaged--but now we have a more open window into each others' lives because of the family and friends we've met and opened ourselves to.  It's like us, but now with richer colors all around.

One of our most beautiful wedding gifts was a handmade quilt made for us by my Aunt Sharon.  It sits now on our couch and it seems to me a fitting symbol of our new life.  We always used to sit on the couch before--watching a movie, talking about work, life, the future--often with a blanket over or around us.  Now that blanket is one that was made for us by my Aunt, with a blessing on it for our marriage.  Now as we sit on the couch we are not only us, we are us more tangibly wrapped up by those we love.

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