I am a wife.

I don't know if you've caught on by the amount of times I've managed to drop the word "husband" in my past posts - but I am recently married. As someone who was determined to become a world traveler, famous actress or ...well anything that did not involve getting a real job - I'm as surprised as you are. I suppose being raised in the south ingrained in me at an early age that marriage and babies were as inevitable as taxes and death. So though I never set out to find a guy and get married - I knew it was going to happen eventually. I just didn't think I'd be engaged at 22 and married by 23 - though the fact that both my mother and grandmother had children by my age should have hinted at a genetic disposition to settle down early. But like I said...I just didn't think that was in the cards for me.

Yet here I am. I still catch myself qualifying my current marital status - "I'm a newlywed BUT I'm not one of THOSE newlyweds" (who am I kidding, yes I am). I just never really thought I was the kind of person to settle down early. I never thought I was a woman who would decide her husband should be the one with a career, and I just want to raise a bunch of snot-nosed rugrats (we've already covered my distaste for children).

I've found there are a lot of things I never pictured myself doing or being - yet I am. I wanted to be a free spirit, making my own clothes, climbing mountains and giving my time and energy serving the less fortunate. Instead I wear my business casual outfit to work everyday helping the middle class man trying to further his education. And you know what? I don't regret any of it. I am still that same girl with lofty dreams and a unquenchable thirst to buck the norm - I have simply learned that I don't have to be doing something drastic to live drastically. I can still serve those ever frustrating adult-learners through my compassion and love - and make my summer dresses to wear on the weekends. Simply because I am walking down the path many others are on...doesn't mean I can't keep one foot on a path all my own.




I am a wife. I am a contradiction. I am climbing a mountain with my husband this weekend.



Picture: Me, back in all my nature loving, rock climbing, hippie glory.