Brave New World

Yesterday I got married.

Married.

I whisper it to myself when I look in the bathroom mirror. I hear it in each heart-beat (which are stronger and faster than usual). Every footstep and tick-tock underlines it.

Married.

This is a hard blog to write. The usual tongue in cheek cynicism has no place here. It's also virtually impossible to describe or explain the multitude of feelings and emotions I went through in the lead up to the day and on the day.

After arriving last Monday, I spent a week coming to terms with the reality of moving countries and cultures, with the implications of marriage and making decisions as a pair rather than just a 'me' - with realising that I can't just run back home to England if / when the going gets tough - with accepting that in marrying Jeremy I am to some degree separating myself from my family and creating a new family. I felt like I was peeling back the layers of some sort of meaning-laden-onion - the England layer, the culture layer, the family / friends layer, each one making me cry and question my strength, until I got to the centre of the onion (and this is where the metaphor founders and falls) and there was Jeremy.

This possibly seems strange to you that I had to experience all of this upon arriving here. If you've been reading regularly you'll know I've contemplated all of these things multiple times. But thinking things through is not the same as feeling things through and I don't think anything could have prepared me for the force and contradiction of feelings that I've felt in the past 8 days.

All of this feeling things through meant that the wedding day crept up on us somewhat. Certainly the night before I was emotionally exhausted and couldn't quite fathom a day of smiling for photos. But then the wedding day arrived and the beating in my chest retreated to butterflies of excitement and a strength of hope and happiness rose in me.

We then realised we had 9 people coming over in expectation for pre-dinner drinks and dips (I learnt this week that 'Americans' [based entirely from Jeremy so maybe there are Americans that do] don't do 'dips'... they do houmous / salsa / guacamole of course, but don't have a collective noun for them. Weird) and so Jeremy and I did a mad dash for balloons and chopped multiple tomatoes (or Jeremy did, I drank coffee and breathed deeply).

A few memories that will endure:
- Buying helium balloons on a very blustery day, and almost losing them all when I got out of the car and they (almost) escaped.
- Racing Jeremy across a car park to T J Maxx (T K Maxx in England - strange huh?) as we rushed to buy him a black belt so that his suit trousers a) didn't fall down and b) weren't held up by a crummy brown one.
- Dancing with mum in the living room to Paolo Nuttini - doing our special dance that involves bouncing and jogging and much hand-waving.
- Jeremy and I realising we'd forgotten to bring cash or cheques to pay for the ceremony so cobbling together $100 from family and friends in the lobby.
- Heather and Scott (dear friends who once trusted me with babysitting their 2 amazing sons) turning up laden with un-prompted roses to decorate the hall and to make me into a bride.
- Sitting with Jeremy at the end of the day, marvelling at the grace, kindness and generosity of friends and family.

Of course it doesn't end there - the reality of being married, of the meaning of 'forever', of releasing the singularity of 'me' and accepting the unity of 'us' is still sinking in. And of course I still have a whole life to build here. But we've made it thus far. We're in love and I'm feeling stronger and more capable by the hour. And we're married.

Married.