Marriage, Cottage Cheese, & 2 Years in the Making

So....how do you eat your cottage cheese?

You might think this question to be somewhat strange, but until I got married I was 100% sure that people always ate cottage cheese with sliced fruit. (I mean the cottage cheese and fruit are both served near each other in salad bars and MY family always ate it that way anyway.... ;)). So imagine my surprise when hub thought it (and several of my other food tendencies passed on via my fam's norms) were totally and completely strange. (He eats it plain or with honey---just in case you were wondering.)

So I thought of this again when I had a craving for cottage cheese yesterday and I ate it with cranberries, walnuts, & agave syrup---something that was even strange for me but I wanted to try something even more different and outside my norm....

Where is this going you might ask?! ;) Well this post is somewhat overdue...because really it's been on my mind since before we moved back, ever since we moved back, and oh many times in between. Its something I've discussed with some of my closest friends and its something I tried to touch on to others since returning in order to explain that two years has the ability to change individuals. And it also has to do with someone awesome in our lives coming over to our house last week---who mentioned that she and her husband have been married for 30-40 years but the first year was just royally horrible (aka they almost divorced).....and my husband and I chuckled and thought to ourselves "Thank God for honesty...."

Because, honestly, (here goes....) I think we sorta love hearing other people talk about how hard it was to start out....because for us, it was INCREDIBLY hard starting out. (In all honesty, it was harder than my dad having cancer, my favorite grandfather's death, and all my years of undergrad & grad school). .....And this means, that I probably wasn't overly "authentic" on this blog (nor with many people in my life) for my first 1.5 years of my time in Louisiana......because, well, really you don't want people back at home (or across the world) to know just how hard, how lonely, and how lost you (aka me) feel....and because the last thing you want to do is make anyone worry (because, I mean, that would just make it way worse ;)). (Throw in there the fact that I was raised and generally believe that one should not "air their dirty laundry"....) Now many factors come into play beyond JUST the marriage that made it hard: lack of social support/community, my lack of employment/purpose for six months, limited outdoor pursuits, lots of red tape and social expectations, social age differences, ....and I could go on. But honestly, as much as we knew marriage would be hard....neither of us expected it to take the path that it did for the first 6-12 months of our time together...and that is one thing that I won't necessarily explain or go into on this blog.

So why am I sharing this now? Maybe it's to clear the air. Maybe it's to try to regain authenticity. But maybe it's also slightly because I feel it's important to discuss that I am a changed person because of marriage itself but even more so because of the last two years. Do I still have MOST the same values? Sure thing, but I can also tell you that I care less about many things than I used to, I can cuss like the best of the soldiers, it feels incredibly weird to have everyone around me want to hug me, my mouth has learned to shut on some political and social topics, for better or worse I'm more blunt to most people, and for the last year I haven't been constantly thinking introspectively or even very deeply at all. I also don't cringe anymore when I throw away a plastic lid or a pair of ratty underwear, but I will still dig used batteries out of the trash. I don't like looking people in the eyes when I talk to them anymore, I'm far more impatient (which was something I always struggled with anyway), and for the first month of our return it was incredibly difficult for me to even really talk in depth about any of the big issues of the time or answer too many questions about myself.

And maybe I'm sharing this now....because I truthfully feel that that particular round of tumultuous times and rough start has passed (although I definitely expect others in the future at some point--we're human after all), and now an incredibly enjoyable period of our life has arrived. It's my belief 100% that a large part of it has to do with leaving the Army/infantry environment and returning to an environment that has many of the things that we love. I do feel it's important to state that we did have good times down there, but the last three months of our pre and post transition have honestly been some of the happiest and most blessed of our marriage. These three months have made me firmly believe that we truly did know what we were doing when we ran off and got married and re-solidified the fact that I married a man who is so different from me yet so similar to my core. For the first time since my initial leave from Oregon, I realize that my husband is truly my best and most consistent friend.

....even if he does think I'm a weird-o for eating cottage cheese with fruit, but at least he introduced me to something 100x better and created my love affair with.....The vegetarian breakfast burrito....:)

Amazingly delicious!

The additional irony is that I am actually surprised to admit that while I don't miss much from our Louisiana life, I do really miss my job & working with soldiers....and the constant sunshine......and my old running trails straight out my door. But I also have come to realize that there are some things that will forever bind me to my Army wife friends who ended up winding themselves into my hardened heart, as there is often an ability to understand that which cannot be explained to others. So to them I offer my love and happy vibes to bolster them through all the beautiful and difficult moments of being an infantry unit Army wife.

Like everyone, we'll continue to change both individually and as a couple and life here won't always be all sunshine and roses, but its incredibly fun to feel that we're somewhere in a honeymoon stage that we never had....

....and it's great to feel that all the heartbreak, anger, and sadness actually feels it was worth it based on the reality of what we truly DO have together..and which is evidenced every day in our current existence.

So take it with a grain of salt...I just broke every rule in the book and aired some half-dirty laundry.....but the truth of the matter is, at least its all come clean.... ;)