A New Endeavor

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens."

Ecclesiastes 3:1

Molly and I have undergone a pretty intense "season" of change these past months. We're talking riding-a-wild-stallion-bareback-through-a-minefield intense season of change.

Besides getting married (which short of giving your life to Jesus, is just about the most world-altering thing you'll ever experience), we became first-time homebuyers. And no, rumor mill, mommy and daddy didn't buy it for us. We did, indeed, purchase the house with, wait for it, our own money.

Lately, our priority list consists of figuring out what's on our priority list. Friends have turned on us, goals that were once important to us have been put on the backburner, and to top it all off, we both recently just left our jobs on less-than-ideal terms with our previous employer.

On the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale (a life unit scale regarded by the medical community as the best predictor for stress-related illness), marriage, loss of friends or loved ones, purchasing a home, and changing jobs are all among the top 20 most stressful events that can happen to an individual. Believe me when I tell you, we didn't need a group of psychologists to tell us that. We've felt the effects of every last "life unit" from each of those events.

But you know what the psychologists didn't bank on? They didn't factor in an awesome God coaching us through it all. And you know what else? We're hanging in there, and we're doing a pretty dang good job of it.

Despite the months of searching, despite a lender committing mortgage fraud and causing our first contract to fall through, despite saving every last penny we could only to turn around and spend a nauseating amount of money on a down payment, God allowed us to walk away with the keys to a beautiful, affordable home.

Despite having my integrity questioned by a corrupt workplace full of "cookie cutter Christians," despite raising money to help people in need only to find out they were blowing it on new cars and vacations, despite serving faithfully with leadership I could never fully trust, God provided me with a new, better paying job that provides enough for Molly to go back to school. God has taken away our misery and replaced it with happiness and more time together as a family.

And despite being told, time and again, how we were moving too fast, despite being told that getting married young was a bad decision, despite being told (literally) that "you will most likely not make it," despite the naysayers, the doubters, the "friends" waiting and hoping for us to fail, God has taken care of us. God is taking care of us. God is growing us. God is with us.

That's all I could ever ask or hope for, to know that my God has my back regardless of what anyone else, friend, coworker, boss, family member, or otherwise have to say about it.

Change is defined by Webster's Dictionary simply as "to become different."

Through it all, that's what Molly and I have done. That's what we're continuing to do. Heck, being different is what God calls us to do. When seasons of change come, it isn't easy by any vastly exaggerated stretch of the imagination. Staying where we are may be easier, remaining stagnant may feel safer, but God's will is so much better, so much more rewarding than any risk we could ever encounter.

Whether we want to admit it or not, when life demands change, when God demands change, it must be unprejudiced and wholehearted. We can't always plan for it. Sometimes, change takes whatever it is you thought you knew or understood and throws it in your face, demeans you. Sometimes, change holds you down and forces you to rethink your priorities, forces you to come to grips with the fact that things simply cannot stay the same.

And we aren't staying the same, we won't stay the same. If that means leaving behind a bad job or friends who won't grow up, so be it. But every new day is a gift from God, a new endeavor that we have to choose to take on, to adapt and grow with.

Don't waste it.

Married Things: Day 25

We're officially three and a half weeks into this glorious union that Molly and I have entered, and I've gotta say, things have been pretty awesome. We've settled into our house, the hubub surrounding our new status is dwindling, and things have finally slowed down a little bit.

It is truly amazing how fast time has flown by. (Cue my dad saying, "I told you so.")

The wedding day, the honeymoon, and everything up until now is stored in my memory as a swirling blur of emotion and color and highlights. But despite the rush of these past few weeks, I've managed to learn quite a bit of useful information about marriage that unmarried guys may or may not be aware of. Don't get me wrong...I am by no means an expert on all things matrimonial.

Heck, I'm not an expert on anything relating and/or pertaining to marriage. I understand that I'm still in that "honeymoon phase" that you relationship veterans so charmingly reflect on. But I am, in fact, still married and my wife hasn't killed me yet after living in the same house as me for nearly a month, so I must be doing something right. That, or she's lulling me into a false sense of security with food and cuddling. Regardless of whether this is the last thing I ever write or not, here's the top five things I have learned post-knot tying:

1. Always lift the toilet seat, and put it back down when you're done. Even if you're dog tired and the neighbor's obnoxious, mange-ridden chihuahua has disturbed your sleep and restored consciousness to your bladder FOR THE FIFTH TIME IN ONE NIGHT, just lower the dang lid. Because if you thought you didn't sleep well last night...you certainly won't find peace in the morning.

2. She isn't going to know/have the ability to do all the things you can do. Take weedeating, for instance. She may not understand why weedeating is necessary. You might have to explain that slamming the lawnmower into the side of the house won't gently cut the excess grass along the wall without damaging the siding. Be patient. Remember you fell in love with her for a bajillion reasons, none of which relating to her prowess in lawn care.

3. You no longer have full ownership of anything. You've departed from bachelor world where you the words "my" and "mine" dominate your vocabulary. "Our" is the new go-to when referring to anything and everything you may have at some point in your life thought you had claim to. It is now referred to as "our house." Our car. Our bed. Our television that is constantly tuned into "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" and other celebrity-filled, drama-fueled programming that makes you want to gouge your eyes out with our scissors. Sharing is caring.

4. Your friends don't understand, and it's strangely okay. Despite how you relish in the fact you can use (and overuse) the words "husband" or "wife" freely, your friends are gonna shoot you weird glances when they hear them and hesitate before they say them. They'll still be hitting you up on the weekends and summer nights just like they did before, but weirdly, unlike when you were dating, you'll be okay with it (most of the time). It's like a well-kept secret, a silent understanding between the two of you that the "dating" mentality is no more. That hectic sense of vying for each other's time is non-existent because you're together all the time. Perhaps, the weirdest change is how that time you spend together is so much deeper and cherished. And before you say it, it's not just sex that makes that time so incredible. (Mind-blowing, I know.) It's simply being in the other's presence and knowing that there's no place in the world you'd be happier.

And last but not least...

5. She is the most beautiful, wonderful, and precious thing in your life. 

Don't you ever, ever forget it.

Pink Shirts

I don't want to get started off on the wrong foot by posting a melodrama revolving around "engaged life" (as my female peers fondly refer to it) and have everyone who reads this thinking they've stumbled across yet another website for a starry-eyed young couple to gush incessantly over their budding romance.  You'll very rarely see me use the term "soul-mate," and if you do, just realize I'm probably being held at gunpoint.

That being said, however, a good friend once told me to never apologize for writing about things I wanted to write about because, if I wanted to write about them, then they must be worth writing about.  At the moment? I actually do want to talk about my relationship.  Sorry 'bout it.

I'd be lying if I pretended that my relationship with Molly was the perfect paradise of sunshine and mutual, unyielding affection towards one another.  Rarely a day goes by that we don't argue about something.  It doesn't have to be important, and most of the time, it wouldn't even make "The Top 100 Arguable Topics Pertinent to Molly and David's Life" list, assuming that list actually existed.

Take for instance our conversation the other day at Molly's happy place, known as Target by those who don't know her.

Molly, holding up two blouses: "Babe, do you like this one or this one better?"

"You already have enough pink shirts. Why don't you pick out something in a different color?"

"So, you're saying I don't look good in pink?"

"That's not what I'm saying! I'm saying you always wear the same color."

"So, you're not happy with the way I dress?"

That's just one of many examples where a discussion over something completely benign resulted in me losing the right to ride in the front seat of the car. Now, I could go into some spiel about how communication is essential to the health of a relationship, but I'm gonna be straight up.

I love arguing with Molly.  Absolutely, 100% love it.

Before every woman reading this, including my own, grabs the nearest appliance to throw at my clearly chauvinistic head, hear me out.

Arguing with my fiance, to me, means stability.  It means that we've got a good thing going on.  It's the equivalent of her looking me in the eye and saying, "I don't agree with you right now. I even don't like you right now. But I sure as heck love you right now."  You're still thinking I must be crazy, right?  I don't necessarily think so.

If Molly didn't love me and, more importantly, if she didn't think that I loved her, she certainly wouldn't have her hand on her hip giving me one of her infamous laser-guided glares over the color of a $12 shirt.  A woman, or a man for that matter, who feels his or her relationship is on thin ice is going to think twice about picking a fight and think twice more about picking a fight over something so frivolous.

Couples in jeopardy choose their battles wisely.  They argue over BIG stuff, and they hold back while they're fighting because neither really knows if the next thing that comes out of their mouth will be the last thing they ever say to the other.  Molly and I, we don't have that problem.  We don't bite our tongues when the other says something we don't like.  When a disagreement arises, big or small, we make it a point to figure out why we disagree.  And why wouldn't we?  Doesn't it make sense to seize every opportunity we have to get to know more about the thing we love most on this earth?  We strive to learn more about each other every single day.

That's a beautiful thing.

If we're in the car, fuming at one another, we don't conceal it.  We go at it.  Molly dreads car rides when we're in the middle of an argument because she knows I will pull over, lock the doors, and refuse to move until we've hashed it out.  We've always disagreed with the mentality that splitting up and taking time apart to brood is an acceptable way to deal with problems, despite being advised to do so by many older couples.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking anyone's relationship.  Maybe taking time for yourselves to organize your thoughts and come back with a clear, viable argument works for you.  For us, organizing our thoughts, formulating our arguments, that's all part of the process.  Sometimes, we have no idea what the heck we're thinking.

And for us, that's okay.  Our mentality?  "Let's figure it out together."

So yeah, I love fighting with Molly.  I love it when we butt heads.  I love it when she rolls her eyes at me, when she shoots me those glances that could knock a vulture off roadkill, and even when she nails me with a laughably girly punch to the arm.

Because when it's all said and done, she knows I love her more than anyone ever loved another person, regardless of what color shirt she's wearing.

New Beginnings

Starting a blog is an awkward process. A little disclaimer: I've been through it three times now, and each time, I've failed to avoid turning my introductory post into a Match.com profile. My track record aside, here goes nothing.

I ditched my old blog for a number of reasons, the primary reason being that 21-year-old me has a difficult time not vomiting from embarrassment whenever I read the ramblings of 17 and 18 and 19-year-old me.

17-year-old me was incessantly whiny and found ways to exaggerate almost every situation through the gross misuse of the word "literally" and the gross overuse of ellipses after EVERY SENTENCE. 18-year-old me most likely needed therapy and, upon review, definitely needed therapy supplemented with Xanax. Lots of Xanax.

Thankfully, 19-year-old me demonstrated some degree of maturity by frequently acknowledging that 18-year-old me's behavior was inexcusable.  But that faint glimmer of manhood faded as 19-year-old me suddenly grew ovaries and went on an estrogen-fueled descent into depression and poorly structured poetry that no amount of Hershey's Special Dark could quell.

Then, before 19-year-old me has time to post any choreography to Sarah McLachlan's greatest hits CD, something strange happens.  20-year-old David begins to write.  Really, actually, truly write some things that have some meaning and depth and, dare I say it, thought to them.  I wrote with direction, and I wrote when I was moved, and I wrote like someone who'd finally grown up.

Looking back, it's very encouraging to see how I've grown, but as with growing up, you learn to move on.  Despite the pride I feel in reviewing the gradually maturing archives of thoughts I've expressed through the years, it was holding me back psychologically and creatively.  And that's where this blog comes in, a new place to detach 21-year-old David from all those younger personas and write like man, so to speak.  I can feel my mom's eyes rolling already.

I'm hoping to use this blog as a "Chapter 2" of sorts for the next phase in my life. I'm soon to be married to the love of my life and best friend, Molly, after whom this blog is named. I'm a semester away from graduating college and beginning a career beyond school.  There's exciting stuff headed my way, and I'm itching to write all about it.