Tomorrow is our one-year wedding anniversary! I don’t know about you, but I find it absolutely astonishing that in about 24 hours we’ll have been married for a full year. I could go on for days about how strange it is that only one short year ago I was finally in Door County – one of my most favorite places on Earth – basking in the wonder of a sweet autumn, or sitting in a little salon getting a rare treat of a manicure and pedicure, or joyfully greeting beloved family and friends as they poured into town, or setting up the tables in the reception hall, or putting the finishing touches on this and that, or rehearsing our ceremony, or enjoying the world’s most awesome rehearsal dinner in existence, or thinking how darn lucky I was to be marrying Ted, surrounded by our incredible family and friends who’d travelled all this way to be a part of something so special to us.
But that was a year ago, not last week or even last month. A few weeks ago I was thinking about this blog. A blog called “Newlyweds in Cincy.” I’d been struggling to come up with a clever title for this little blog I wanted to start to document our life and keep our friends and family in the loop. I was searching for something that really spoke to our new life together, but that wasn’t as bland or cliche as “The Story of Our Life.” Because that could be about anyone – but this was sbout us. Newlyweds in Cincy fit the bill. It summed up our entirely new circumstances of being newlyweds living in a brand new city and had a nice ring to it. So, there you have it. Newlyweds in Cincy.
I didn’t really think about how well that blog title would adapt to life in a changing world. I didn’t think about what would happen when we were no longer newlyweds, or when we moved to another city. I guess I just thought I’d just be lazy and keep it, or I’d change it when it no longer seemed appropriate because we we’d been married for 4 years and living in Iowa for two and a half of them, or something like that.
Then I got attached to it. I like the name Newlyweds in Cincy. I like what it says about us. A happy couple exploring our new home and all the great things it has to offer, and weathering life’s up’s and down’s as a team. As our one year anniversary approached I contemplated the name. When is a couple no longer newlyweds? After one month? Six months? A year? I’m sure most people would call it after a year. You get that one year to bask in the newlywed status, to make googly eyes at each other and hold hands in public and shamelessly flaunt your wedding pictures and proudly proclaim that you’re newlyweds and then after that you’re cut off – now you’re just married. I wondered if it was time to change the blog title to something more “appropriate.”
But the more I thought about it, the less I agree with branding “newlyweds” as a designated period of time. I believe newlyweds is less about the amount of time that you’ve been someone’s husband or someone’s wife, and more about a state of being, a feeling, a way of life.
And that’s why I’ve decided not to change the title of this blog, likely for as long as it exists. It’ll always be Newlyweds in Cincy, or Newlyweds in Philly, or Newlyweds in Austria, or Newlyweds in Timbuktu for all I care. The location will change – I can promise that. Theatre folks are nomadic after all. But the newlyweds won’t change. Because I see nothing wrong or misleading about still being newlyweds (though you may not ever publicly call yourselves so) after three years, or nineteen years, or forty-seven years.
My parents have four children, nine grandchildren, a few half-children (foreign exchange students they housed, foster children they helped raise, etc.) and have been married for over forty years. They’ve moved nationally and internationally many, many times and have faced their fair share of trials and joys. They have one of the best, most loving, marriages I have ever witnessed and when I see them laugh together, and tease each other, and do something kind or helpful or selfless, or go one some great adventure together, or even just sit at the table for lunch and a cup of tea, I just know that they’re still newlyweds.
I have a best friend who has been married for five years and they’re one of the happiest, most playful couples I know. Definitely newlyweds. Another friend and her husband, who have been married for nearly the same length of time, have some of the best teamwork going in terms of planning their future and achieving their goals together. They’re still newlyweds. My sister and her husband have one of the kindest, most respectful marriages I’ve seen after seven years. I’d say they’re still newlyweds.
So with our one-year anniversary looming closer every minute, I think we’ll keep on being newlyweds, thanks. And this blog will go on being Newlyweds in Cincy for as long as we’re in Cincy. And then we’ll just be newlyweds somewhere else.
