Kels and I are married now and I have one month until I go back up to Newport for Naval Justice School. Officer Development School was much more meaningful than I ever expected it to be, and our marriage ceremony was also considerably nicer than it had any right to be given the amount of planning that I put into it (perhaps it was exactly as nice as it should have been given the amount of work Kels put into it- I don't know, I wasn't here very much). We owe so much to so many people in ways that we cannot even begin to repay, but I think everyone can be sorted into the following general categories:
- Our friends and family who supported our decision to have a small wedding - Kels and I didn't want a wedding where we only got to see our friends for five minutes at a time, and you all were with us on that. Though our efforts to instruct people not to get us a wedding gift went occasionally unheeded, in general everyone was on board with our plan and we would not have had such a nice and stress-free wedding without your support. In light of that, we pledge to make a serious effort in the coming years to spend actual quality time with everyone who would have rightfully been at a large wedding.
- The people who went out of their ways to do something special for me or Kels in the months leading up to the wedding - although we protested any sort of special treatment, we must admit that it was very nice to be taken out to nice dinners and shows and to receive cards and messages and general well-wishes from friends near and far and old and new (and in the case of my ODS class, so new that they really did surprise me with their surprise cake and cards). We know that you all did those things without any thought to receiving anything in return, but in spite of that we are going to get you back. Eventually.
Kels: Five days into married life....1 day after Christmas...less than a week from our annual NYE reunion (that we met at 3 years ago this year)....and the this feeling I can't seem to shake is that I am very full.
- First of all, my tummy is full. Our wedding tasted like duck confit strudel, homemade italian wedding cookies from my mom, Wise Guys pizza, almond coconut cake, and champagne. Christmas tasted like my mom's homemade greek pasta salad smothered in fresh garlic and drowned in balsamic vinegar. It also tasted like the saltine cracker toffee Leslie brought with her when she visited. It was the best of all food worlds.
- Our apartment is full. It's full of presents and half-unpacked suitcases, laundry waiting to be done and leftovers, presents and mementos....it's the loveliest mess I've ever seen.
- When we went home for Christmas, we were a part of a very full house. Courtney, Najeem, Ashton, and Kim came over to hang out with Mike, Leslie, me, my mom, Rick, and my grandma. We watched Ashton play with wrapping paper and got used to the scurry of several little doggies underneath our feet. I took lots of allergy pills:) I know I get louder and maybe a little more outspoken when I'm around my family....and I don't think that's a bad thing. I think 'home' feels like a safe space for that.
- We also had our arms full. This evening, my stepsisters came over. There are 4 girls between them and we had a 4 month old and an 8 month old in the group! Between auntie time with Ashton and step-auntie? time with the girls, we all had our arms and hands full this weekend. The energy those children have just puts me to shame.
- My heart is so full of love right now that I think it could burst. As Mike mentioned briefly in his section...we had no idea all of this would work out so perfectly. I mean... we wanted it to, but we didn't have a ton of time to plan and we kinda just tried out hardest and hoped for the best. The wedding and Christmas were nothing short of magical, though, and seriously exceeded our dream expectations on every level. I think a lot of it had to do with the love we felt that night from our friends and family, from both near and far. Not enough can be said...there are just really no words. We keep looking at each other and saying..."Can you believe that worked out as perfectly as it did?" It feels like we must have done something right.
- Finally, I'm full of joy and peace and hope. Joy because I feel like this is the kind of happiness that might become more of a chronic condition. It is bubbling outside of me into giggles and fits of silliness. Peace has become the soundtrack of my life. There is a lot that I can't control still, but I am completely at peace with where I'm at right now and don't see that changing. I'm hopeful for our future together. I know that choosing to commit to Mike for the rest of my life is one of the best decisions I've ever made.
Okay, now that I've gotten the feelings out, a story from our early days of married life:
- The Blueberry Hotcake Story
Mike: Kelsey tells me that I have to tell this story, and so I will.
When I left ODS, Ben helpfully offered to take anything off my hands that I might not need until I got back. Because I am very, very intelligent, I asked him to hold onto my cover (my officer hat that must be worn while outside and wearing the rest of the uniform). After all, I reasoned, I would not be wearing my cover. When I imagined myself getting married in my dress blues, I imagined myself without a cover on because I would be inside. I had neglected to think about how, in getting to the inside, I might need to be outside for a time. All of this is a long way to say that I had to borrow a cover from one of my ODS friends who happened to be in the area.
So after the wedding I had to return the cover. I asked if he wanted to get lunch with me and Kelsey on Tuesday, and he suggested a 24-hour diner near where he had lived as a student. And so we met up there. After spending far too long deciding whether to go with the breakfast, lunch, or dinner options, I settled on ordering blueberry hotcakes. The time was approximately 1:25.
Following a lovely meal I returned my friend's cover and continued on with my errands for the day. These errands involved me running all around DC- over to 1789 to pick up Kelsey's mom's hat, over to the court to turn in our marriage license and some certificates of marriage, and back to Arlington to pick up Kelsey from a coffee shop. Having been married for less than two days, I was in a cheerful mood and I am certain that I smiled at everyone and everything I happened to come across. After picking Kelsey up we went home and tried to organize/unpack/make responsible financial decisions and other such things. Around 10PM I went to brush my teeth, which is when I first noticed that there was a giant blueberry stuck to my bottom-right teeth, fully covering at least one tooth and being in no way subtle.
"Kels," I called to the other room, "did you notice there was something in my teeth?"
"Yes," she responded. "It's a blueberry. From your hotcakes."
"From lunch?" I asked, patiently.
"Yes," she said.
"Why didn't you tell me that there was a giant blueberry in my teeth at lunch?" I asked, somewhat less patiently.
"I didn't know you were the kind of person who would want someone to tell them that there was something in their teeth, and then there wasn't a good time to tell you, and then I forgot."
So there you have it - just two days into the marriage and we were already learning new things about each other. Kels, for example, now knows that I'm the kind of person who would prefer to be told about things in teeth, especially before going out to do smiley errands all day. Hooray for learning.
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