marriage, day 7

Today is our one week anniversary. I got a call from my mom this morning: It was absolutely pouring in town. When my sister got home from tennis practice, they were wringing the rain out of her clothes. We couldn't have been luckier.

Today is also the one week mark: Next Saturday, we will be on a plane heading East. We've spent hours over the last few days mapping out that first week--the Metro stops we'll need, the restaurants we'd love to see (Laduree & Les Deux Magots in particular...). This has gotten me incredibly excited for the adventure we'll have, the love we'll feel walking Paris together & spending our first night abroad on la rue des Abbesses. It's gotten me excited about sharing culture, experimenting with photography, speaking French & blogging the experience...

It has also gotten me horribly depressed. I've been sleeping more. I've stopped writing. I've been eating anything & everything fried. I ate meat. I felt sick, slept more and didn't feel any better. I want to put my sister in my suitcase & bring her with me.

I am having separation anxiety. This is life. This is an extreme case of leaving the nest for your new life with your spouse. This is a crash course in Adult Living. This is a romantic adventure, a mark for the kind of life we hope to live & a massive turning point in my relationship with my family. We're close. Like peanut butter & jelly close--we stick. Now, we're learning to hold together across bigger distances. Some days, that's harder than I thought.

Today, I tried not to have one of those days. While Joe's mom prepared food for an extra wedding reception for his family tomorrow, we got booted from the house & sent over to New Harmony for a day. The town is a failed Utopian community and, I can't lie, felt a bit like The Village.

Walking between the preserved cabins, I thought of my father. Each time we pass a one-room building that is in semi-isolation, he's quick to decide if he could live there or not. He usually could. Without electricity or running water. And he would love every minute of it. Today, standing in from of a one-room cabin with muslin curtains & a polished wooden floor, I found myself thinking, "I could live in that."

I was more surprised when I said the phrase to my husband. They say that you turn into your mother and marry your father. Over the past week, we've learned that each of us is more like both of our parents than we'd every imagined.

It was hot. The air was humid. My face was sticky. We were thirsty. We headed into a small restaurant, the Red Geranium, and skipped the menu. We headed straight for the bar. Joe got his usual, the coolest whiskey we could see on the shelf. Today, that was Buffalo Trace, a bourbon that was new to the bar. I settled in with a large bottle of Ayinger's Bavarian dark lager & let it warm my insides until everything the divorced, child-spoiling, easy-going, Ohio-born-and-raised, knowledgeable bartender said made me smile and let out a small giggle.

Conversation drifted to & away from spirits & breweries. When we settled back on the topic of whiskey, I said that I was trying my hardest to like it. I admitted that it was in large part due to the old-fashioned-sipping Don of AMC's Mad Men. Without realizing it, we'd convinced ourselves to order an old fashioned. I was nervous: There's a sweetness to bourbon that I can't wrap my stomach around. I try to be amiable, but it insists on being contrary.

We sipped; it was smooth; my nerves were calmed; my husband was smiling. The roof over our heads was covered in a hand-painted mural of trees. Light was streaming through to canvas-covered windows. I was in the moment, completely content, listening to a man give us an old fashioned as a wedding present and using the experience to look forward to all of the shared moments Joe and I will have in the days & years to come.

We're almost done counting down. Soon, we'll be adding up. Days are already passing like cars on these country roads we're driving. We're afraid to sneeze & swerve too far.