Today’s Tale is from Lauren of San Francisco, whose bride experience began in the most non-traditional way, and she continued blending tradition with uniqueness for her wedding day. Lauren has been married since September of 2011 and now that the planning of her wedding is over, she goes on to thoughtfully plan her life as a wife.
Whether it is for two years, one year, or six months, wedding planning consumes you, takes over who you are, and changes your identity. In fact, you are so consumed with planning, that your new timeline in life is in relation to your wedding date, and you lose all sense of seasons, holidays, and real time.
Then the day comes, and it is the best day of your life, or shall I say the the best six hours of your life. It comes and it goes, and that is that. Then what? Well, seasons and holidays return, and your sense of time goes back to normal. But, at the same time, you may suddenly feel blue. For some, like me, feeling blue may have nothing to do with the wedding ending at all.
My post-wedding blues have been entirely unrelated to wedding planning or the wedding celebrating being over. In fact, I was ecstatic the day after the wedding, because my to-do list was finally non-existent, and I finally had a husband. Yet, post-wedding, I find myself blue as I reevaluate my overall life in its entirety. Am I happy with my career? Am I happy with those that I surround myself with daily? Becoming a wife triggered a mini, and quite early, life crisis when I discovered that the answer to these questions is “no.”
I am an attorney. Although I am not sure what my destiny is, I am sure that it is not to remain in the legal field. Yes, this means taking my J.D. and, in a way, throwing it away. Meanwhile, my law school loans remain with me at the same time that my husband and I should be saving for our future home. And, it means leaving behind 28 years of shoving my face in a book, the only thing I really know how to do. But, post-wedding, I realize that I am meant to do something else in life. I am meant to be more creative, and to leave my academic comfort zone. I am tired of saying to myself, “One day I will…” Now, actually, is the time. So, six months into marriage, I’ve left the legal field, with current dreams of joining a tech start up — an environment that is the antithesis of law; organized chaos and undefined roles await me.
I also realized that as life goes on, we get busier and busier. The amount of time I have for friends diminishes quickly, especially as my family unit grows. I suddenly realized post-marriage that I felt as though I wasn’t giving the people who really matter as much time as they deserve, and at the same time, I was giving mere acquaintances too much time. My plan? Come to terms with the fact that as an adult, my intimate network decreases in number and is composed mainly of family and friends who feel like family. Then, when I’m not spending time changing the world through my career, spend most of my time with my intimate network. This has meant continuing to travel back home monthly to Southern California to see my family, planning a trip for them to visit my husband and me in San Francisco, and visiting my grandparents who live locally as much as possible.
Why is now the time to change my personal and professional life during this post-wedding stage? I don’t know. My best guess is that this crisis has hit for two reasons: (1) because my life is “complete,” yet I still feel as though something is missing; and (2) because I need to be complete before we have children. So, for me, post-wedding blues have taken the form of life reevaluation. I have my family unit, and now I feel as though it is time to assess other aspects of my life — the ones that I have not quite figured out.
Perhaps my marriage gave me the confidence and courage to look at the parts of me that are weak. I definitely don’t want any life crises hanging over my head when we bring a new little person into this world. Rather, I want to know who I am, who my support network is, and how to manage the craziness that is adult life. Now, post-wedding, seems to be the ideal time to re-assess, to fix, and to finish developing myself.
