Little did I know....

I think when you're dating and you're engaged, you have this preconcieved notion of what marriage will be like with your significant other. I sure did.  Someone recently asked me if marriage was everything I thought it'd be. My answer... no, but I wouldn't change it for anything.  

  Marriage is not like the movies. You rarely wear makeup if you don't have to. Pants are in that same category.  You don't wake up and greet the morning together with coffee and a makeout session...  you spring out of bed to get ready to for work and settle for a forehead kiss because of your morning breath.  Your husband, however, will embarass you in public and exclaim, "I HAVE THE PRETTIEST WIFE! LOOK AT MY PRETTY LADY!"   Marriage is hard.   There are going to be nights when you fight about the tiny things, and there are going to be nights where you fight about huge things.  You're going to learn how to mesh your two personalities, backgrounds, upbringings, goals, dreams, etc.  We were raised differently, so figuring what of his upbringing we wanted to keep, what of mine, and what we wanted to be new was one of the hardest things in my opinion.    Marriage shows you you didn't know the person you married as well as you thought. You marry the person you think you know. For Jackson and I, we had known each other since middle school. We had grown up together, we knew each other's likes and dislikes, and how to make the other tick. We knew the good, the bad, and the ugly. However, there were still so many things we didn't know. We are learning daily, and I hope we will continue to learn about each other.  I'm learning that clothes and hampers aren't a match, toothpaste is a mirror decal, and we're both "just let me do it" personalities. It makes life fun.   The "little things" change.  When we were dating, I loved that Jackson would open my door, buy me flowers, etc.  Marriage changed the little things for us.  Jackson works a hard job, he is tired, dirty, and ready to relax when he gets home.  The little things include him folding laundry with me, him loading the dishwasher, him taking out the trash without having to be asked.  Don't get me wrong, the little things from before are still "little things" that make me smile ear to ear, but there are new little things I never thought would be "little things".   You don't get to spend every waking hour together.  That one was hard for me.  Silly, I know. You get married and go on this beautiful honeymoon where you literally spend every second of every day together, and then you come home and work to get into a routine (see "Marriage is hard.") of working, housework, church, cooking and eating dinner, and bedtime.  I'm lucky if I get four hours in the evening of family time.    Marriage is still the best thing I have ever taken part in, and I love everything about it.  The same person asked me if I would have rather someone told me all of these things... and my answer was still no. I have loved learning and growing with Jackson.