Tuesday, Jul. 04, 2006 11:04 a.m.

25 and married. weird.

I have another online diary that I write in when I feel I have the sporadic need to get something out.

I know I could write this entry in there. I thought long and hard about writing that entry in there. But when it comes down to it, I want to write it in here.

I am NOT back to writing regularly. I am writing this in here because, though maybe only 2 or 3 people will read this, it is a public web diary. Because it has the potential to be read. And I want to know that this has the potential to be shared.

I will skip over the past 10 months of my life, but I must summarize it briefly for understandings sake: I was in a crappy job and I was miserable. I went through a sort of identity crisis. I shut off and went into auto-pilot. But that job is now over and I am just now waking from my self-induced coma.

Being married is a very interesting experience. I never had a long-term relationship before this, and now I have committed to this one indefinitely. Next month I will have been married for as long as I was both dating AND engaged combined.

I am still the same person. I think it is a very common misconception that when you get married, two become one. I am still me. I have not lost who I am and my own opinions and my own thoughts and choices. Yes, he is a huge part of me, but the majority of married life is not becoming the same person, but rather figuring out to make two people compromise into a shared partnership.

I love having a best friend that I come home to every night. I love deciding what furniture to buy with him. I love knowing that I have an automatic snuggle-toy. I love having a partner. I am not complaining in the least. I still love him to death and I'm still glad I'm married.

But as always, we tend to view the grass on the other side as greener.

The past week or two, since waking from my "coma", I have been struggling with the fact that I am no longer single...and never will be single. Seeing as how before a year and a half ago, I had only spent 3 weeks of my life not being single...the single life has basically ruled the majority of my life.

I am working with cute guys every day again. At the beach. With kids. I have fun, I joke, I play. There is an atmosphere of comradeship with all the counselors...there always is when working with kids; we exist for the kids, but we understand the inside jokes with everything involved.

I wouldn't necessarily say that I have crushes on them...but if I were single now, I know exactly which guys I would have crushes on.

I don't wear my wedding ring at the beach. I don't want to lose it. But I think it really surprises people when they find out I'm married. I think I like that it does.

I miss the attention of being single. I've never been much of a flirt, but I've always been social - especially with guys. I miss feeling as though guys want to talk to me, as though they don't immediately turn off once they hear me refer to my husband.

It's not that I want the flirtation, it's that I want to feel like I'm still interesting.

This past weekend, we went to someone's birthday party at the bar/club that I went to for my bachlorette party. I hadn't been since then.

It's one of those places with a mechanical bull and as it was apparently a popular place for bachlorette parties, I watched two other brides-to-be take their turn on it. I remembered when I rode the bull.

I remember flirting with those guys. I remember being with the girls. I remember the attention.

I sat there, at the bar, getting tipsier and tipsier by the minute, and watched. I watched the single people. I watched the exchanging of numbers. I watched the guys watching the girls as they rode the bull. I listened as guys persuaded hot girls to ride.

No one would try to persuade me anymore. I had crossed the line from being interesting and available, to uninteresting and unavailable.

I realize that this entry could quite possibly appear as complaining...but I don't really mean it as so.

I mean it more as a documentation of my life. Of what being married is like. Of the stages one goes through. I still absolutely love my husband. And I still smile when I look at him, knowing every bit about him and loving how he cares for me. I greatly respect him and love sharing my life with him...but I think I'm settling into a new stage...and I'm definitely out of the newlywed bliss.

Being married at 25 is interesting.

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