Home, Sweet Home – Making Our House Into a Home

I don’t think anyone could have possibly prepared me for the changes that would happen within the first few weeks of marriage.  I don’t think there’s a way for anyone to prepare for that.  I think the bride-to-be thinks she’s prepared for it.  She thinks she knows her man better than any other bride before.  She thinks she got it all figured out.  But when the changes roll in, it hits like you never expected.  The changes are bad, but they are changes.  And they take some getting used to.

For me there for big obvious changes and the small, unexpected changes.  The obvious changes are moving to a new town, a new (to me) house, new church, new bed, etc.  I think about the only thing that stayed the same was my job…oh and that’s a 40 minute drive for me now instead of the 15 it used to be.  We had planned to build, but when the housing market and economy went south, we didn’t have much of a choice.  Our $410/month house payment for a 1400 sq ft, 3br 1.5bath house looks awfully good right now.  The best part is that if one of us were to lose our job in this tough economy, would could still make it.

I’m also getting used to sleeping in a new bed with another human being…a very odd concept for someone who has spent nearly 30 years sleeping in the whole bed by herself.

I don’t think I was expecting the Domestic instinct to kick in quite like it did.  Consider that I married a professional bachelor who lived like a bachelor.  Think about the amount of cleaning (or not cleaning) he did over the last 3 years.  I felt an immediate desire to fix it all.  Perhaps it’s even more strange that when we were dating/engaged, I never had the desire at all.  Maybe it has something to do with it being MY house now.  And as a side note, the first “honey do” thing I asked of him was to clean the empty cartons, cans, containers from the refrigerator.  There was no room for the good, real groceries.

Anyway…I was prepared for the 24/7 companionship, something that is a little difficult for an independent person like me.  I was not prepared for the sense of permanent attachment.   I don’t mean the eternal commitment issue.  I’m talking about the sense that every decision I make is no longer up to me.  That I can’t just get in my car and run to the store without telling someone.  I can’t go visit a friend at the spur of the moment.  I can’t lay in bed and sleep on Saturday morning because I don’t feel like facing the housework.  Every decision I ever make again is a decision for both of us.  Everything I ever do again will somehow impact Jerrad.  It’s almost like Newton’ s law…for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  It’s an awe-inspiring, overwhelming responsibility.