Paper
Three hundred and sixty-six days (it was a leap year, remember?) On Sunday, Jonathan and I will celebrate our first wedding anniversary which means our marriage has already lasted almost 3.5x longer than the combined marriages of Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries at 72 days, Ethel Merman and Ernest Borgnine with 32 days, and Britney Spears and her first husband Jason Alexander (no, not George Costanza) at a mere 55 hours.
I’ve heard that the first year of marriage is the most difficult. Between the end of that exciting period of planning a wedding and realizing that this is now real life and not just a party, it’s not surprising that a lot of newlyweds have a rocky start. Obviously, all couples are different so the challenges and triumphs they face in their first 12 months will be different but the married class of 2019 has had the added bonus of navigating a global pandemic while also navigating starting a life together. It’s been super cool. So this week, I want to share with you guys some of the challenges and triumphs we’ve experienced and the lessons we’re taking away as we celebrate our paper anniversary.
Before we got married, Jonathan and I lived separately. Not out of fear of living in sin but because it was just the way things were for us financially, so after getting back from our honeymoon, we moved him into my house. Of all the new things marriage has brought, learning how to share my space with another person has probably been my biggest challenge. I didn’t grow up with siblings and I never had a dorm or roommates so I’ve been very used to having things the way I like them. After Jonathan moved in, it took a couple of months and one serious conversation for me to learn to lighten up. To think of this now as our space and not just mine. Listen, that was hard and I definitely still have moments when I’m too controlling over the way things should be done but I’m learning, okay? I’m in a much better place with it than I was 10 months ago so we’ll call that a win.
Not only did I have to learn how to share my space, Jonathan had to relearn his daily routines in a new and mostly unfamiliar environment. Feeling like he didn’t have a space to call his own was a struggle…no one wants to feel like a guest in their own home. But after our big purge over the summer we’ve been able to reclaim the garage as a workout “studio” and an extra bedroom as an office space where he can take calls and work on his storyboards and editing instead of being relegated to the desk-less bedroom or on the patio in the blazing heat/freezing cold. It’s not perfect but it’s workable for now.
One thing we’ve always been good at is handling a crisis. 2019 taught us a lot about our own resilience individually and as a couple so when the pandemic came about and lockdown/quarantine went into effect, we didn’t panic. Sure, we’ve been forced to spend almost every waking moment together but we do actually like each other, why else would we have gotten married? This time together with limited distractions has made us closer through new hobbies and learning what each of our strengths and weaknesses are when it comes to working as a team on projects around the house. Neither of us turned out to be anti-maskers or think it’s okay to go to parties or big gatherings while Covid is still so prevalent.
Honestly, it’s such a relief to find out you didn’t marry a secret asshole.
The first anniversary is usually referred to as the paper anniversary and I totally get why. Paper is fragile. It can be torn or burned in the blink of an eye. But it’s also a fresh start. Something that can be as valuable or as insignificant as you want it to be depending on what you put into it. And isn’t that really the perfect analogy for a first year of marriage? It doesn’t take much to make it crumble but if you put your time and love into learning how, you can make it the story of a lifetime. Here’s to seeing what chapter two has in store!
Can you remember your first year of marriage? Was it your most difficult or was your honeymoon phase still going strong? Do you like to follow the traditional/modern themes of wedding anniversaries? Let me know in the comments below! And keep an eye on Instagram to see the fun way we used paper to celebrate!