Letter to My Un-Wed Self

Dear Single Cortney,

 As of this coming weekend, it's been a year since you and Dan got married. 365 DAYS. ONE Y-E-A-R. What the heck. How did that happen? It seems like we've been married for a few weeks. I cannot fathom how a whole year has gone by. 

 I don't think too many people know much stuff about marriage after one short year of it. Really, you've got to be married for like 10 years or something before you're allowed to start handing out marriage advice. But I definitely did learn a few things after being married for a year. Not necessarily all about marriage, but rather through being married. 

You'll learn that, despite what you thought, you actually like to cook. Instead, you discover that it's not cooking that you hate, but going to the grocery store. And you fall into a weekly routine of going grocery shopping at 10 o'clock at night. Because you can't even begin to function normally when it's crowded in there. it. is. awful. 

Get used to pregnancy jokes. Everybody is going to assume you're pregnant all the time. Last weekend, I was offered a turkey sandwich and I declined and made myself a salad instead. Naturally, the only explanation could be that I'm preggers and am abstaining from lunch meats. And don't even think about mentioning that you don't feel well. The rumors will start flying before you even have a chance to deny them.

 It's not as hard as you were told it would be. The whole marriage thing, that is. Going through pre-martial classes and just having conversations with people, made me kinda (not really) second guess the whole thing. I just heard so many negative things about marriage and very few positive things. I would usually leave wondering "what the heck am I getting myself into?" It honestly probably is really hard but maybe I just haven't reached that point yet. Maybe all the hard things start happening once you reach the three year mark or once you're 30 or something. I don't know. (But this shouldn't surprise anyone, seeing as I know very little.) And don't get me wrong, there are things that Dan does that can make me so angry that I literally scream or times when I get really frustrated because I can't spend money like I used to be able to when I was single or times when I wake up in the middle of the night and Dan is dead asleep, halfway on top of me, totally on my side of the bed and I just long for the days when I had a nice queen-sized bed all to myself. But really, for me, those times are few and far between. There are so many more times that he makes me laugh so hard that I'm legitimately scared that I'm going to die of suffocation. Like, I just can't catch my breath. And so many times that feel loved and cherished and wanted. And so many times that I'm amazed that God has granted me this wonderful gift of marriage.

 You'll learn that relationships are better than things. One of the most terrifying nights (for me) of our first year of marriage came when I broke our waffle maker. Dan LOVES waffles. And he LOVES our waffle iron. We took it to a family party so he could make his delicious dessert waffles and I was carrying it back inside. I'm not really sure what happened but when I got to the top of the stairs I somehow lost my balance and dropped the waffle maker... down two flights of stairs.Obviously, it was broken, as was Dan's heart. I was terrified that he wouldn't speak to me for a few days while he mourned. But he found it in his heart to forgive me, and we used the last of our Bed Bath & Beyond wedding gift cards to buy a new, better DOUBLE iron-ed waffle maker. Grace is a beautiful thing.


And finally, the sooner that you understand that boys believe farts to be absolutely hilarious ALL THE TIME, the sooner you will stop a lot of arguments. 

 Here's to one year and cheers to many more to come!

 Cortney, a wife

He makes a stupid face. I punch him. Ah, marriage. 

New waffle maker. Look at how happy he is.

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