Holy blogging hiatus.

I’m not sure what to blame it on other than I’ve been working a lot lately and we’ve just been incredibly busy with things too boring for public knowledge.  Most of these boring things revolve around being newly married i.e. joint taxes, joint savings etc.  Our lives have been changing a lot in the last couple of months and depending on the day I’m either incredibly grateful and excited about it or a little bit scared and nervous.  Marriage is pretty amazing but be warned that it will absolutely catapult you into lots of little changes – ready or not.  Luckily I’m a believer that change is usually good…but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy.

In a new marriage the ‘combining’ of two lives can be tricky and a little uncomfortable here and there.  I like to think that the uncomfortableness means we’re doing something right.  It means we’re putting everything out there and dealing with it rather than ignoring the tough stuff and keeping to our more comfortable and separate ways.  Thankfully it’s not all been tough stuff.  As a matter of fact some of it’s been pretty fun.

One of the more fun and exciting changes keeping us busy lately that will eventually become worthy of public viewing has been the purchase of new bedroom furniture.  ‘Grown up’ furniture as I’ve been calling it.  Remember this?  Well the embarrassment FINALLY took it’s toll and we snapped into action.  This past weekend Room & Board delivered our beautiful new bed, dresser and side table to compliment our new mattress and bedding.  The room is still completely empty aside from those three pieces but it’s already such a transformation.  I’m working on choosing some art, another (hopefully antique-esque) side table and adding the finishing touches.  Photos will come at that time.

You might be thinking: “Ali, let’s be real.  Two lovely young men from the furniture store delivered, hauled up and assembled your furniture for you.  How exactly does this make you busy?”

Fair question.  I’ll explain in a long winded rant.

The delivery of the large dresser has created a lot of flexibility in terms of storage.  Jon and I live in a condo in the city, and while fairly spacious for two people, storage is hard to come by.  Our guest bedroom has up to this point served as my closet with everything getting shoved into random spaces when people stay with us.  When people are here, I have to get ‘my stuff’ out of ‘their room’ every morning and I always feel like i’m intruding.  Plus there’s really no place for them to put their things since I’m occupying the closet and dresser for myself.  So rude, right?

What I’ve been trying to accomplish is the combining of Jon’s and my things into one room, one closet, and one bathroom.  This in turn will open the second room, closet and bathroom for our guests to enjoy..with no interruptions.  Along with being my closet, the guest room has also housed random pieces of furniture that we have no other space for like a chest from Jon’s childhood, an old target bought dresser, and a ‘from college free if you want to come get it’ papasan chair.  This room has been almost as big of a disaster as our room was.  Almost.  I’ve been working on rectifying that situation since Saturday and was totally unprepared for what an undertaking it’s turned out to be.

It actually felt like a mathematical equation that took a bit of time to figure out.  There has been a lot of frustration, starting over and extreme organization.  It’s taken some letting go of things, routines, and ‘the way things were’ by both of us.  It’s also been comical at times, particularly early in the morning when Jon is wandering around in just his socks and underwear complaining that he ‘can’t find anything in here’.

As of this morning, all of our things have successfully been combined into our room, our closet, and our bathroom.  I’ve labeled drawers with post it notes until we adjust.  It’ll be interesting to see how long the meticulous organization lasts (thank goodness for the container store) but for now it feels and looks pretty good.  We’ve created a new system that we share equally, which in turn will create a better space for our many guests.

It’s been cathartic to see the light at the end of the tunnel in setting up and combining our rooms in our home like this.  Granted we’ve still got a little ways to go, but progress has definitely been made.  It helped tremendously that Jon put all his trust in me and let me do my thing.  He knows that I’m better at things like this than he is and not only does he support me doing it on my own, but he’s relieved that I can.  It’s been a surprisingly good lesson for me.  To give up some of the control in areas that you aren’t very good at, let the other person flourish at the things they’re better at, and then enjoy the benefits together.

Jon and I have always been very different…held different things at different levels of importance.  I’ve always thought that was what made us work.  I was telling my friend Ashley the other day that sometimes he annoys the shit outta me with his nonsense and then the next minute, when I pull the stick out of my ass, I find myself curled up in non stop laughter with my best friend.  We challenge each other, make each other laugh like nobody else can (except maybe Ashley) and truly respect and love each other.  At the end of the day I would always bet on us.

Who knew that redecorating a bedroom would have such enlightening effects on me?  It’s shown me that even though it can be frustrating and confusing, combining lives…changing to accommodate the other person…even if it feels scary at times, can work, can make life better, and in the end can be 100% rewarding.