Two Months Married

Half way through the wedding ceremony I thought, “I have no idea what I am doing.” I looked at him and realized, “He doesn’t know either. The next idea was, “And this is the only way to find it out.” So I kept on my permanent wedding smile.

It has been two months now. I think back and remember things like how little Iasmine couldn’t keep her eyes off of me in my wedding dress. She stopped dead in her tracks and stared like her life depended on it. I smiled, and told her to go back with the other girls. No movement, not even a blink. I frowned, and told her to go back with the other girls. Repeatedly. But she wouldn’t budge, looking at me like my wedding finery was feeding her hungry belly. Iasmine lives at the dump. She has never been to a wedding. There isn’t much she sees that is beautiful. She was starved for beauty. I couldn’t be angry about that. I signed and let her stare.

Vulnerable. That is the word that ran through my head over and over as I prepared to get married, and then took the plunge. My goal in being single was being self-sufficient. Taking responsibility as an adult and learning how to make it work the best I can. Changing into marriage phase of life was vulnerable.

Learning to love someone. Letting them in. Entrusting them with the rest of your life. Planning a wedding in another country and not knowing how to do much of anything. Two days before the wedding I stood in the line of the grocery store, having bought food for 250 people. As I saw the bill, I fiercely proclaimed that they’d better come. My hard front for the fearful feeling that no one would show up. Vulnerable.

And when we finally got in the car and left for the honeymoon, it hit me again. Vulnerable. Naked bodies and whole worlds I have never known. I have had to retrain myself—it was like my body didn’t know how to enjoy itself. There were stigmas tied everywhere to feeling guilty for feeling good, or wondering if I crossed a line into lust…I had turned off pleasure for so long, my body didn’t know how to let go.

What do you get when two virgins get married and start having sex? Confusion. You realize all you knew about sex and intimacy you’ve learned from Hollywood and the porn industry. The church told us “Just wait,” but the part of you called sexuality didn’t just lie dormant and still—information snuck in under the door. Subconsciously, while I was keeping my clothes on, my heart was naked and held by the ideas of culture. The lie is that part of your life would just stay “Empty and void” until married. It is an illusion to believe that everything we let into our minds for years won’t come into our bedroom now that we are married.  

I hold him in my arms and he tells me he is broken. I am broken too.

We had our honeymoon, moving back to Indiana, Thanksgiving and family reunions, Christmas letters with wedding invitations, family vacation, and Christmas in Connecticut with his family. Now it is a new year with new goals. We wrote our resumes, our 2014 goals, and our bucket list. We move from dreaming to doing. Dreaming has been nice.

This morning when I woke up, he opened his arms to me and said, “Come.” Soon I am enfolded in him. He invites me in closer, in so many ways. Even when we argue he grabs my hand—calling me to stay. There are so many things I appreciate about him, from his like-ability and fun-lovingness, to his optimism and humility: it has been an amazing two months.