Thursday, May 17, 2012

Nostalgia for Newlywed Life

This morning, I was reading this blog post by Emily of My Song of Joy about what she missed about life with her husband before her kids were born.  I realized that there are a few things I miss about life "just the two of us" too.  It's not that I wish I could still do those things, because I love life as a family of three and acknowledge that it requires some fundamental changes about our relationship and what we can do together.  I just think fondly back on those memories.  They had their time and place, and the moments I miss were so integral in building our relationship into a strong foundation onto which we could support a family.  These are the little moments I miss:

When we were first married, David frequently brought home flowers for me.  They were almost always roses (my favorite) and they seemed to show up almost once a week.  One of my "love languages" is gifts and I could have just burst with happiness when he came in the door with them.  When we decided to start trying to have a baby, the roses were an expense that we couldn't justify anymore, but now we have our own little Lucia Rose, the greatest gift David's given me!

In the early months of our marriage, I worked odd hours at Starbucks and David often had to go in to work on experiments at all hours of the day and night.  But the odd hours didn't matter, because there were only two of us  and we were young enough to be able to work around the hours to find plenty of time together.  When I worked in the evenings, David would often come to Starbucks with his computer to work on his homework.  We really wouldn't have the chance to talk, but it was comforting to be able to look up whenever I wanted and see my husband.  Similarly, if he had to go into school on days I was off or evenings when I was home, I would often go with him.  Sometimes I'd join him in his office or lab, but just as often, I would stay in one of the study rooms on the floor above.  Again, we wouldn't always be able to spend that time together, but just being in each others' presence was enough for us, especially after having just spent two years living several states apart.

our first meal homemade meal as a married couple
If neither of us was working in the evening, we would go to the grocery store in the late afternoon to pick up ingredients for dinner.  I loved our daily grocery trip and then making dinner together afterward.  Sometimes we would pick a complicated meal (the first meal we made together as a married couple was a risotto), other times it would just be spaghetti and pasta sauce.  With a little one, getting out as a family to shop isn't as practical.  Neither is cooking dinner together, since someone needs to be entertaining Lucia (although we recently had some success bringing her in the kitchen with us and handing her kitchen utensils to play with).  Now that we are a family of three, we are watching our budget more closely, and choosing meals out of a cookbook and on a whim just aren't as cost-effective as meal planning around sales.  Someday, when David retires, I think this will be a newlywed tradition that will be resurrected (well, I wouldn't mind bringing back frequent flowers either).

After we decided to start trying to get pregnant, we cancelled our cable and internet.  For a few months we didn't have an antennae either, so television was completely off the table.  It was so fun finding things to do together - we would play board games and card games, we would cook elaborate meals, we would hang out late at Starbucks, drinking coffee and surfing the internet together.  We would watch one episode a day of House from my DVDs of the first three seasons (everyday we just couldn't wait for the next episode).  We would read.  We would pray.  We had so much time together, time to learn who we were as a couple, time to learn who we were as individuals, time to learn even more reasons we loved each other.  To be honest, when I think back on this time, I dream of a house without television (I'm not a particular fan of our children watching television anyway).  At least for the time being, internet is a necessity in the home so that our families halfway across the country can see our little Lulu, but I wouldn't mind getting rid of it once (if) we live by family.  Our time together is precious and irreplaceable. 


as newlyweds

The first six months of marriage were difficult.  It was hard to learn to live with someone else, not just in a roommate sense but intimately.  To be honest, I don't remember many of the difficult moments.  Instead, these are the moments that I remember of newlywed life.  Our wedding ceremony made us Mr. and Mrs., but it's through these moments that God taught us what is is to be husband and wife.

Those of you that are married, what do you miss about newlywed life?  

How do you keep the "newlywed" spark alive?  

If you are a newlywed, what do you think you'll miss? 

If you aren't married yet, what do you think you'll love most about newlywed life someday?

6 comments:

  1. Love this post! It's a good reminder to me to enjoy the moments that may not seem super exciting right now. Sometimes I feel slightly 'cheated' because Steven and I don't work the same schedules. I always had dreams of being pre-baby newlyweds and doing all kinds of spontaneous things together like day trips and weekend trips (If you can't tell, I love trips), but everything has to be planned within an inch of it's life, and very far ahead, because of his work schedule. Weekends off for him are pretty much impossible. But I know I need to appreciate being newlyweds in other ways and not in that pre-conceived notion of what I thought it might be like. And I do, but I think I've been in a pity party mood lately thinking how fast time the time is already going. In no time, we will be starting our own family, and this post was inspiration for me to work harder on really enjoying the day to day life now before we have big changes. Some of the things I think I'll miss are random late night trips out to Target or for an ice cream cone, going for walks regardless of the weather, and laying in bed for hours just talking about life and the future. Sorry to have written  blog post in response :). Thanks for writing this!

    ReplyDelete
  2. So sweet! My husband and I have had  years of "newlywed" time before children (plus this 9 months while we wait for the baby to arrive). Your nostalgia sounds a lot like mine! We spent many hours at Starbucks on the internet because we didn't want to spend money on cable and internet at home. We lived in the most out-dated little apartment (read: orange shag carpet) and had a little hamster named Elmer. I think I miss the spontaneity the most, and will miss it even more when there's a little baby running the show in a couple of months! We're still working on how to keep the newlywed spark alive, but it hasn't fully left just yet!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Amy_YouShallGoOutWithJoyMay 18, 2012 at 5:50 PM

    What a lovely post!  Jon and I used to get the train home from work together (we worked in two different places, but got the same train from London to home). I loved that time together, even if the train was crowded!, and it made the evenings seem so much longer than if we were to just meet at home. But a big thing we used to do is go on long walks together and talk, talk, talk. We still are able to do that--our conversations are just interrupted with Gus pointing out yet another car, and the walks usually are in the direction of the park!

    ReplyDelete
  4.  That sounds so wonderful, taking the train home together!  Like something out of a movie! 

    ReplyDelete
  5. Congratulations on you baby on the way!  I'm sure you'll be great parents with all the practice you got with little Elmer!  I love that you had a hamster together! 

    ReplyDelete
  6. I bet the moments you remember most will be moments you rarely even notice when they happen.  I can understand the difficulty with work schedules that clash - when I worked at Starbucks I was always at work evenings and weekends when David was home.  Sounds like you are finding ways to make it work though!

    ReplyDelete

I'd love to hear what you have to say! You can also contact me directly by emailing me at messywifeblessedlife@gmail.com.