Our First Year

Our first year of marriage was full of fun and surprises.  We navigated home ownership for the first time in our lives and managed the fears and anxieties that come along with being newly married.  We worked hard that first year at understanding one another and being mindful and respectful of each other's thoughts, feelings, needs, and desires.  We negotiated very important matters such as which way the toilet paper roll should go and the placement of furniture.  We heeded the warning that the first year is the hardest and took keeping one another happy seriously.  There are a lot of things about that time that we both look back fondly on.

Johnie loves telling the story about how I had trouble adjusting to him sleeping in the bed with me.  Luckily for him, we usually planned our evenings so that we went to bed at the same time.  But one night, about a month after we were married, I was too exhausted to wait up for him and went to bed by myself.  I am a very heavy sleeper, and when that sleep is disturbed it usually takes a few minutes for me to gather myself.  Throughout my life, during times of change, I have woken up unsure of where I was, which day of the week it was, and what exactly I needed to accomplish (i.e. go to work, school, church, etc.).  Even during that first month, mornings would sometimes find me trying to figure out why the paint in the bedroom of my apartment was a different color than I remembered and how the window had grown larger only to remember I had moved to Kansas and gotten married.
This night, I was deeply asleep in minutes.  The next thing I remember is hearing footsteps and panicking because someone was in my apartment!  I look to the doorway of my bedroom and see the outline of a tall man in the darkness.  I was terrified at the thought of what might be in store.  Was he just here to steal things?  Would he hurt me?  Would he kill me?!?  I didn't know what else to do but start screaming at the top of my lungs in hopes a neighbor would hear and call 911.  I also threw the only thing within reach, my pillow, at the intruder as sort of a knee jerk reaction.
Through the screams I hear a voice, "Amy, calm down.  It's me.... It's me."  After a few additional seconds of further panic at the realization that the stranger knew my name, I realized that I did recognize his voice.  I quickly recognized it as the voice of Johnie, my boyfriend.  I was confused as to how he managed to get in my apartment (maybe Sarah let him in) and why he chose to surprise me with a visit so late at night (maybe he had been driving all day and was just now getting to Kentucky).  Then I remembered: I live in Kansas now and Johnie and I are married.  I was a little disappointed, and also a bit relieved, that none of my new neighbors came to my rescue.

I love telling the story about how Johnie lost his shorts.  It was a warm summer afternoon, and we accepted some friends' invitation to spend the day with them on their boat at a nearby lake.  We had gone out with them a couple times before and were looking forward to another day on the water.  The last time we had gone out, we had tubed.  It was a thrill for me, but borderline too much, and my arms ached for a few days afterward from my deathgrip on the intertube's handles and the roughness of being thrown around behind the speeding boat.  While I'd probably be willing to hop back on again today, I just wasn't feelling it on this particular trip.  Johnie, however, was very excited at another chance to experience this fun activity.  He was the first one out on the tube that day.  And possibly because we had just heard him talking about how much he was looking forward to this ride for the last couple of hours, or because our prior trip had just been a taste of what a real tubing adventure could be, or just because guy friends find pleasure in pushing one another to their limits, Todd (driver and owner of the boat) was giving Johnie the ride of his life (and maybe this is just a sheltered little girl's perspective).
At any rate, it was a more rough ride than the last one.  The boat was going fast and the tube was bouncing all over the place, crossing wakes, and skidding across the water during turns.  At one point the tube bounces into the air, flips upside down and lands back in the water.  My throat tightened in the second it took for the tube to right itself on the lake.  I was ready to scan the area for my husband, but amazingly he was still on top of the tube.  He was still hanging on, but wasn't really moving or saying anything.  I was worried and shouted out to him, "Johnie, are you okay?"  His timid reply came, "yeah... I lost my shorts."  The dark bump floating just a couple feet from Johnie in the water were his shorts we quickly realized.  Even though he was wearing a life jacket, he was unwilling to let go of the tube to retrieve them.  We turned the boat around but by the time we made it back to the spot the shorts had sunk.  Thankfully, Johnie's cousin, Jessie, was wearing a pair of her husband's swim trunks over her own swimsuit.  We all decided giving those to Johnie was the best option we had.
And, because I love my husband, I will share his favorite part of this story.  Jessie handed me the swim trunks and I realized that everyone expected me to deliver the clothes to a naked Johnie behind the boat.  I was still not used to the fact that it was completely appropriate for me to see Johnie naked and had a moment of internal panic and embarassment.  Why didn't she give the trunks to one of the guys to give to him?  They all knew he was bare bottomed and I would see him.  Then I remembered once more that we were married and this was in fact completely okay.

Thankfully, not every day was as eventful as those two days during our first year.  After getting settled into our house, I fell into the wifely routine very well.  I had a laundry day, would walk to the grocery store, or take our dog for a walk throughout the week, and enjoyed all the cooking and some of the cleaning my scheduled afforded me.  By mid-summer, I was feeling a bit bored.  Johnie worked long days, and on those days, I felt like I was waiting on him to get home every evening for hours.  I began seeking out work, and by the end of summer had landed a job with a local non-profit agency (it shall have it's own post later).  Johnie's job contiued to go well.  He was accepted into Leadership Academy at work and after a diligent application process landed his first office job with Cox as a Communication Specialist.  It was a good time for us.

As we began celebrating our first holiday season as a married couple, we also began celebrating our first year of marriage.  We began verbally expressing to friends and family how relieved we were that our first year, the hardest, was now behind us and wasn't so bad after all, only to hear that actually it is the first two years that are the hardest.  Thanks, guys.  We've heard since that it is the first five years, and there's also the "seven year itch," the fifteen year mark seems to be difficult, along with any time you move or switch jobs, or have a baby, or another baby, or when children reach certain milestones, also when they move away, or when a family member dies, or when one of you gets sick, and well, basically, the whole thing is just hard.  We were a little discouraged by this, but still very thankful to have made the leap into marriage with each other.