Still alive

It feels strange, after so many months of updating every other day at a minimum, to take so much time off from here.  But it's my honeymoon, and there are pools and sunshine and roller coasters and V.  We're heading home in two days; I'm not ready to leave.  Of course it's a common feeling on the tail end of vacation, but life at home seems so hectic.  I'm hoping much of it was wedding planning, and it will be calmer now.  I need some calm.

I've loved having quiet time with V.  This is the first vacation we've taken where it's just the two of us and we've spent the entire time in one place.  We needed it.  We're reconnecting in ways that had been chipped away over the past few months of children and losing jobs and wedding planning and loan payments.  And nobody here looks twice at us.  Yes, when we checked in, the lady asked if my parents were here, but I put that down to age; nobody's batted at eye that we're two girls, honeymooning.

We've been congratulated, hugged, cheered.  I'm going to miss it.  Here, it seems everyone is just happy for new love, regardless of gender.  At home, only some new love is a happy occasion.  I don't want to have to figure that out again.

These are the rambles that happen late at night, when I'm due for more cough medicine.  I'm still alive.  And I still have another day and a half before I have to face the music.  And the dirty diapers.

I'm apparently a lesbian

I suppose that title shouldn't quite read like that, since I married a girl six days ago.  But that still is how it seems.  On a bus today, on our honeymoon, we chatted briefly with a middle-aged couple, both women, about the weather and things like that.  It occurred to me that I'm in "their category."

I've often said that I'm a straight girl with a girlfriend (or rather now wife).  I don't say that to denigrate lesbians or any other non-straight group of people in the least; I just seem to be, well, mainstream.  Not quite white-picket-fence, but close.  I always figured I'd grow up and marry a boy, and instead I fell in love with a girl.  It took awhile to get used to the idea, but she's most definitely more wonderful than a boy.

And so, according to society, I am now in a different category of people, be it the LGBT one, the marriage-destroying one, or the abnormal one.  I don't feel any different.  I feel pretty normal, actually: married, honeymooning, in love, the usual.  Also per usual, rambling, after a very long yet wonderful day on my feet.  I'm not sure if my thoughts are coherent, but it's nothing a nice warm bath can't fix.

Who do I sue...

...if I don't feel well on my honeymoon?  This is rather unfair.

Pre-honeymoon reflections

I really should be packing, but after packing, unpacking, and repacking this past weekend, I'm going to take a break before finishing up our honeymoon packing.  Besides, V has done most of it.  You know, my wonderful wifey.

Being married is incredible.  The day of, even after the ceremony, we didn't feel different at all.  Very happy, and excited, but not particularly different.  But now there is something.  Maybe it's just having made that public proclamation; maybe it's getting used to a different ring.  (In the previous post, mine's the sapphire ring and hers has the little diamonds.)  I'm a fan of this feeling.

The place we got married recognizes our marriage, obviously.  So do some of the surrounding locations.  The place we live does not, and neither does the place we're about to fly to for our honeymoon.  It's an interesting game of "now you're married, now you're not."  I was worried when we crossed the state line from an accepting state to a non-accepting one that I would feel sad, or that the weekend had been pointless.  I couldn't be further from the truth.

No state government can tell me I'm not married.  Sure, they can make me do my taxes by myself, and try to list me as single, but I'm married now.  In my eyes, in V's eyes, in our friends' eyes, in God's eyes, and in the eyes of some smart people in government.  This weekend was the farthest from pointless imaginable.  It was pointed, poignant, and perfect.

Hello world.  I'm married.

Hitched

We're safely back from getting married, after having the absolute best weekend of my life.  To be surrounded by all our close friends, to laugh a ton, to wear a beautiful dress, to watch my wife wear a beautiful dress...that is a wedding.  It was perfect.

We had a blast.  Now, for one day of work, then off to honeymoon in warmth and sunshine!

Send-off

V and I are leaving tomorrow morning!  When we get back home, we'll be, as the twins' dad put it, "all hitched up."  He was super generous today, helping me get the kids into bed early/on-time, so I could come home and work on packing and wedding prep (yep, it's still ongoing - a DIY wedding many hours away is a big project!).  He also loaned us a CD player for the ceremony.

Meanwhile, the twins' mom left a card and some chocolates for us, along with best wishes.  The card was perfect: it talks about how the best partner is one who is a friend.  To top all that off, Bug and Andrew's mom is loaning us a video camera so we can have a tape of the ceremony.

We have the best families ever, and they are all so excited for us.  It's awesome.
On that note, who knows how much I'll be posting over the weekend.  Brb, gettin' hitched!

Patrick's bows

The twins, as you all well know, are a boy and a girl (or what's commonly known as b/g twins, on those acronym-laden websites).  Lilly has longer hair than Patrick, and usually has a clip in it to keep it out of her face.  This inequality cannot fly, however, and so Patrick routinely says "Bow too!" whenever I pull one our for his sister's hair.

It's really adorable, and his parents do the same thing.  Today I took them both out in the stroller, her in a white shirt, green sweater, and purple flower clip, and him in a red shirt, white hoodie, and red flower clip.  I love the fact that their parents don't panic about him having "girlie tendencies" and don't blink when putting bows in his hair.  Sure, it doesn't show up in formal pictures or anything, but still.  I like that he knows he can wear them too.

And there's just something awesome about walking down the street with a girl and a boy in hairbows.