Starting

Yesterday I was a bridesmaid for a good family friend of mine at her wedding. It was so beautiful and fun and went so well, and she was so happy that her special day went so well. J. was my plus one and we danced and had so much fun at the reception. Later on, when the groom's tie was thrown, of course J. caught it... and then I managed to stand right in the path of the bouquet... So naturally, everybody started to tease us, asking when the wedding would be, and if he had proposed yet! It was really funny, and actually really cute and romantic for J. and I. Of course we love talking about one day getting married, so it was really special that a silly little tradition like that worked in that favor for us. Whatever happened before the wedding this week seemed unimportant and was forgotten by the end of the night almost entirely; J. and I are officially back to normal :)

What I wanted to really talk about though was something the pastor said during the ceremony. He said that that moment on that day of their wedding was only the start of a lifetime of happiness and love and learning and experiencing together. It made me think a lot about perspective and time in relationships, and really life in general. While we live day to day in our little lives, a second can feel like an hour, an hour like a month... Just today at my job in a restaurant, I was talking to a little girl who was sad because she had to wait five minutes for something, and it hit me all over again. We never grow out of that feeling that five minutes can be forever, that just one second can drag itself out over lifetimes. Part of that little girl is in all of us, impatiently waiting for more, wishing for time to go faster, wanting everything to happen now.

In relationships with one another, I think sometimes it's easy to get hung up on that feeling. That intense yearning for the seconds between kisses to disappear, for the days between seeing each other to wink out of existence, for the hours between waking and dreaming to go faster, if it means we can see the love of our life more and more and more. We get immersed in impatience, content only when the seconds and minutes and hours are filled with the presence of our loved one.

But when people get married, gone are the days when that side of us is dominant. People move in together and sleep with each other every night, and suddenly the moments alone become rare and dull and absent of that impatience and yearning. The time spent together becomes less intense and perfectly imperfect and less spontaneous and wondrous. He was right when he said it was the start of a certain life together... but what kind of life?

I think it's definitely possible to maintain the impatient mentality once you're married or in a comfortable relationship, and I think that if you can do that, you're really starting a lifetime of special happiness and love. Part of love is, indeed, a comfortable secure feeling... But another (just as important) part is the life and vivacity and youthfulness of feeling like every moment is precious and worth while and rare and sparkling. The part of love that starts anew in marriage is the re-discovery of that familiar feeling in a not so familiar new life.

Do you know that feeling of impatience and wonder? How has it impacted your relationships and your life? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
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