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When I left graduate school after only a semester of being there, I knew I’d be hard to remember.

We’ve all had those people come into our lives for a short period…only to leave again, onto the next adventure. We say, “Remember that one girl who was here and wrote blogs about coffee dates and being single? What was her name again?”

As short as my time was in the Boston area, and as forgettable as I may have been to those I met and whom befriended me… it left permanent marks on me. They left permanent marks on me. Beyond Nick’s Famous Roast Beef or ultimate frisbee on Saturday mornings, I walked away different. Challenged. Ready. Confident.

There was more out there and I’d finally gotten a taste of it.
Some of the best things I took away from there were: The Birthday Questions.

If I’ve been around you on your birthday in the last year and a half, you’ve probably gotten asked two questions. They were questions asked to me on my 29th birthday… questions that made me think, open up, and take a chance. I can’t tell you where they originated, or even if these are the exact same questions that were actually asked (probably the case of the little game called “Telephone”), but I can assure you that I will ask some modification of them for a long, long time.

They are questions that some might ask themselves at New Year’s, but I like the idea of asking them upon everyone’s individual new year.

1. What is the most important thing you’ve learned in the last year of your life?
2. What is one thing you want to accomplish in the next year of your life? 

“You have great hair! Is it naturally curly?”

My heart leapt with joy at the flight attendants compliment and I discreetly pumped my fist in the air after answering her.

“Did you hear that?!” I hissed to my husband as we boarded the plane. “Someone finally complimented me on my hair instead of you getting a compliment on your hair.” It was a small victory to write down in the books.

I couldn’t remember the last time it had happened, honestly. He gets compliments all.the.time. And these are the problems you run into when you marry a man with long, luscious, blonde locks *sigh*. I certainly didn’t anticipate him stealing all of my hair compliments when we entered into our relationship. And I certainly didn’t anticipate all the other weird parts that come with long-haired men.  Sometimes I even threaten a little Delilah action in the middle of the night…

He loses hair ties. He breaks hair ties. We share hair ties. We’ve bought more hair ties since being together than I’ve bought in five years (or something like that).

Things I didn’t anticipate.

Sometimes, when we’re running out the door, he rushes back into the bathroom to fix his hair. It wasn’t pulled up right, so he needs a mirror to re-do it. I get it. I do it, too. But, that was my reason to be late…it wasn’t supposed to be my husband’s.

There’s hair in the drain. Hair on the floor. Hair in the food (just kidding, that’s usually mine). It’s a good thing I am brunette and he is blonde because I always know who is to blame.

He often flops his Fabio hair in my face when he turns, or bends down and stands back up, or leans forward than sits back up. He swears it’s not on purpose, but I’m convinced he wants me to be aware of how great his hair is and acknowledge it. I mostly get concerned when he adopts these same mannerisms around strangers and whips his hair back and forth. “What are you doing?!?“

He loves braids.
He likes it when people play with his hair.
He thinks I’m jealous.

Things I didn’t anticipate.

But, it’s okay.
Even with his compliment stealing, loose strands everywhere, drain clogging, and breaking of hair ties… I still love him. And his hair is beautiful.

Mostly it’s just funny. Something to laugh about and (occasionally) be annoyed by. Because it’s all worth it. And now we’re one. Unified. One braid, under God.

Things I didn’t anticipate, with a man I didn’t anticipate…
But it’s always better than what I hoped for and imagined.
And it’s always full of surprises.

I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect.

“It’s just different.”

They were words I muttered too often as I doomed myself to a certain loneliness as a single lady. In my mind, the moment a friend got married, there was just no way that we could ever connect in the same way we had before. I would still be single and they were now married. We were too different. Obviously. It’s as though sex changed everything. Or a life partner. I don’t know. I just knew that they would never understand the fullness of my emotions. We were in different life stages now.

Woe is me.
And so I isolated myself further from people as we got older. Before long, my options for friendship consisted of the few late twenty-somethings that were single or the young twenty-somethings that definitely couldn’t understand my plight. It’s as though just being around married people served as a reminder that I was very much single. Always the third wheel. Who wants that?

But now I’ve crossed over.
Initially I felt a disconnect (even though I probably only created it in my mind). Single people won’t think that I can relate to them anymore now that I’m married. I convinced myself.  It’s just different. They might even dislike me now!

And I get it.
But I don’t.

Because I’ve been there.
The last decade of my life of struggling through the ups and downs of being single, owning single, loving single, hating single… those years aren’t lost. I just maybe have a bit more hope in my cynical nature than I used to. But the years were real. And, it’s not that different. I’m not that different.

Maybe I have to spend money differently, or adjust to a bedmate, or learn better communication skills, or how to be an introvert with someone right beside me…. but it doesn’t mean that I have to spend every waking hour with my husband. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to have conversations, friendships, adventures with people outside of him. It doesn’t mean that I can’t possibly understand the frustrations that result in being single… whether that’s through my own stupid expectations or the ones I feel like the Church or society is placing on me.

Because I do.
I get it.

And my point is that I fear it’s far too easy for us to isolate ourselves from others for one reason or another, especially as a single person. There are always a lot of excuses for not making an effort, for not reaching out, for not accepting the reach outs…. and one of mine was: but they’re married. And now, I just think: SO?

So what.
I fear that I spent too many years pushing a way, running from, believing this lie that I had to live in solitude because others wouldn’t understand, believing wholeheartedly that they could no longer relate. How can my friend who has been married since she was twenty, who is birthing children, possibly get it?

I bet she could.
If I had given her a chance.
Because we aren’t that different.
Because those don’t have to be the things that define us.

I’m still broken and I still need people. People that the Lord places in my life who remind me of His love, His grace, His faithfulness and goodness. People who are older, people who are parents, people who are younger….sometimes even children. People who are in a different life stage than me (*gasp*). And together, as we live in community… refining happens. Together, as we share life… we grow. We start to look a lot more like Jesus when we graciously open ourselves and our hearts up to those who are “different” by allowing them to know us and seeking to know them.

It’s not that different.
It is.
But it isn’t.
Not enough to separate us from each other when all we’re really craving is to be known and loved.

Last night I made:

Pork tenderloin
Mashed potatoes
Homemade rolls
Chocolate Chip Cookies
(we’ll consider potatoes a vegetable right now)
And I wore an apron with nothing on underneath.
Just kidding.
But, I could have.

I’m a wife now.

I’m amazed by how quickly food goes now that I live with a man. I used to make a pizza for myself and eat leftovers for a few days… and now I’m lucky if we get leftovers at all. 

Things no one warned me about.

There’s someone who now sleeps in my bed but rarely goes to sleep at the same time as me (partially because I’m a grandma and partially because he’s a night owl who requires less sleep than I do). Now I must learn to fall asleep to a small reading light in my normally pitch black room. No one told me about this before I said, “I do”.

Despite what everyone makes your virgin self think the days before your wedding, you don’t just have sex all the time as a newlywed. I actually think people are scared to come over, to invite us over, to call, to text, to email…because it might interfere with our sexual escapades. Perhaps I’m not like the rest of the newlyweds in the world, but we truly have lots of time for other things in life. Including friendships. We actually even like to hang out with other people. Crazy, I know.

I made a trip to Target by myself the other day to pick up a few items of necessity. On a normal occasion, I might have wandered through the clothing section and at least thought about purchasing a new item or two for myself. As I walked in the door, I looked longingly to my left and quickly veered right. I hadn’t discussed unnecessary financial decisions with my husband and I couldn’t very well spend $30 on an article of clothing and then be upset if he did the same (because, let’s be honest… I’d probably be upset about his super unnecessary purchase). While everyone warns you about the financial stresses in marriage, I didn’t really think about the fact that even smaller amounts of money warrant a bit of discussion. So much for my boyfriend cardigan spontaneous purchases.

So, life is different.
No one can possibly warn you of all the ways it’s going to change, either. What’s weird for me probably isn’t weird for the person next to me… and what I find easy, someone else might find incredibly hard.
It’s a good different, though.
There’s just learning period, a transition time that’s necessary.

You don’t brush your teeth at night every night?
But I don’t really ever floss?
Let’s agree not to judge the other’s personal hygiene habits too much…  yet. We’re both mostly… clean.

Things no one warned me about.

We’re all really good at speaking from our own experiences. The things that work for us and the things that don’t work for us. I think that sometimes I got really good at assuming those things would often apply to me and my marriage. Or, I forgot that the overarching lessons in marriage don’t always apply to the day to day.

And so we learn.
We grow.
We communicate.

“Are you okay?”
“Yes! Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re just sort of quiet.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not used to being around someone allllll.the.time. I’m great. Truly.”                                                                                                        “Okay. Just wanted to check.” 

And then we move on.
We laugh a lot. We roll our eyes a lot.

But mostly we’re just thankful.
Even if no one really warned us.
Each day we get to wake up and choose to love each other, bad breath and all.
Each day we get to decide how and if we’ll serve the other.
Each day we get to choose our words carefully.
Each day we get to put action to our desire to be an example of the Gospel in this world.

Once again, I’m thankful that the Lord is strong when we are weak.
Once again, I’m thankful that He is sufficient.
And I’m thankful that both of us need Him first and foremost, before we can ever lean on each other.