Married Life

At some point I plan on posting some wedding photos on here as well. I guess I was just more excited about sharing the Belize pics. The wedding shots turned out great and all, but I am still just dragging my feet about it.

I think this post-wedding period is bigger for other people than for myself. Everyone keeps asking me what it's like to be married when the truth is that we've been living together now for six months so being married doesn't feel any different than life in general has for six months. Besides, the wedding was two weeks ago. Nothing about "married life" is going to be different within that time frame, especially when half of that time we were in Belize.

Also, people are making a huge deal out of the whole name-change-deal. The first thing that pisses me off is that people assume automatically that I'm changing my name. We received checks in the mail prior to the wedding addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. H." What a crazy complication that could have been! But it's an OK presumption with an appropriate title assigned to it. What sends me into fits are the items addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. K H." I have ceased to be recognizeable as a person. I am now solely "Mrs." I am no longer myself, I am now K's Wife. In getting married I did not disappear. I did not become someone else's second thought. In fact, I did decide to accept K's last name in the marriage process, but it was not an easy battle. And I do mean battle. I wasn't sure about the name deal because I had created myself under my maiden name and given to that name numerous degrees, recognitions and publications. I didn't (and still don't) think it fair that I should be expected to wrecklessly abandon all that just to wait in line at the social security office for an hour, leaving with a new alias. I don't think K had ever really thought about it before - about what all it entails to alter the one thing that has most defined you your entire life. At first he wanted to be able to pass on his family name and was very concerned about spreading that legacy, but later came to want something I view as more realistic - one family sharing a common name. He knew I held reservations about changing my name so he said he would just change his and become a "J." I let that be the case for a while before I told him that what I really wanted was to accept his name, that in making that choice I could find more to identify with than in my own last name. "J" always represented to me anonymity and in fact I actually had people ask me on more than one occasion if I was serious that that was my name. Sometimes I had to show them my ID before they would believe me. Maybe part of what makes "J" so anonymous is that I don't know anything about that side of my family. I've never seen pictures, I don't know their medical history and I've never been to their family functions. They are a nameless, faceless bunch to me. But with the "H" side of my family I know a good deal of that information. They also know me and welcome me - in a way no one from the "J" side of my family ever has.

Arg. I don't know really where this post began or where I expected it to wind up, but here we are. Basically, yea, married life is great. No, the romance isn't dead yet. No, we aren't having kids soon (sorry Liz). To answer another question asked recently - no, I don't regret it. Who would ask that - I know - awful question, but one I answered. In fact, my decision to be with K is one of the best decisions I've ever made and is probably the decision that has left me feeling most at peace with myself and the world.