20-Something…

For those of you who don’t know, I celebrated my 23 birthday this past Saturday. Go ahead and collect yourselves, because I know some of you are thinking, ‘You are only 23?’ I get that all the time. LOL Truth be know, I have an old soul and have always been told that I was wise beyond my young years. And most days I feel that way. When life throws you hardships at a young age, you are sometimes forced to grow up and mature whether you want to or not. No matter, this has always be something more of a compliment to me. I love hearing people say that they assumed that I was older, simply because of my demeanor and the way that I carry myself. Just so long as no one starts telling me that I look older…  🙂

Anyway. My birthday went great. I was a little worried because the hubby wasn’t here, and I figured that I would be upset. And honestly, I did get that way Saturday morning when he called to tell me happy birthday. I cried for a bit when we got off the phone, took a nap, and was ok by the time that I got up. I’ve really been handling this separation much better. And so has the husband. I guess we knew more about what to expect this time, so it’s made it much more bearable. Hubster bought me a new computer though. And a few Photography books that I’ve been eyeing for several weeks. Baby sister treated me to a mani/pedi and my parents took me out to eat [Outback, baby!] Sunday, the mother and brother-in-law treated me to Longhorn and gave me a Giftcard to Barnes & Noble, which I promptly used on a CS5 book and a Starbucks {no, I didn’t spend all of it…yet.}

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the whole ‘age’ thing the past few days, and I can’t help but realize how much I have changed and grown just in the past two years. Especially in the time since Little Man has been born. And even more so now that hubby isn’t here. Marriage sometimes makes a person lose their independence. Especially the wives. I don’t know why that is, but when I sit back and analyze it from an outsiders point of view, more often than not, it seems to be the women that more or less conforms to things and changes in a marriage. I would say that I did a lot of that myself when hubby and I first got married. I don’t know if it was because everything in our life changed so fast, or because I was still so confused at 20 years old about who I was, or what I wanted…I really can’t pin-point it.

But I realize now, having spent the last several months away from my husband, doing my own thing, being a single parent for all intense purposes and discovering exactly what my passion and purpose is in life-that I am becoming my own person again. And I feel like the husband is too.

Not that we ever gave up ourselves or anything, if that makes sense, but I just think that we spent the first two years of marriage “becoming one” and failed to remember that within that ‘one’ were ‘two.’

And that’s what has been changing within our marriage. While we are stronger together than we have ever been, we have both realized and are pursuing our passions and our purposes individually. And I’m proud of us. I’m proud of him for chasing after what it is that he wants, and I’m proud of him for supporting me in what I want. We’re having to make compromises to achieve all that we have our hearts set on, but we’re doing it together. We have to give and we have to take. And our time away, ironically, is teaching us more about that than I would have originally thought possible. You think when people spend so much time together that they would drift apart, but that hasn’t happened.

We are more in love and stronger knit than we’ve been since we said I do.

I’m really excited to see what year 23 brings for us. For me, for my family, for my marriage, for my career…this year has a lot of uncertainty mixed with a lot of promise and a lot of excitement. New adventures, the closing of several chapters of our lives and the beginnings of new ones. It’s going to be a good one, that much is for certain. I look forward to it. Bring it on!   🙂