Newly Married Logistics PTSD. Reflecting on our first few weeks of marriage and the future.

Let me begin with the first few days of Seth and I’s marriage. Many people have heard this story.

Seth and I got married Saturday, August 10^th. We went away to a lodge up in the mountains in Cooper Landing, Alaska until Tuesday, and then Wednesday we flew to Columbus, OH with nothing but our luggage and ourselves. Literally. Up until that point we had each lived separately in the dorms, so we had not a single kitchen utensil, piece of furniture, etc. We had an apartment waiting for us in Marietta that we had never seen (shout out to Emily Garrity for checking it out for us), but not a single thing in it. We had no car. Nothing. There were a few wedding gifts on their way from Alaska, but otherwise we just had some gift cards (and praise Jesus for those gift cards. More about these later) and clothes.

So we arrived in Columbus, OH on our 5^th day of marriage. My best friend Cally and her dad picked us up from the airport, we went to a car lot and said “we have about $3000. Which one can we have?” and had the choice between an old Ford Focus with no AC, a Honda Accord with >300,000 miles on it, or a Volvo with a mysterious noise. We chose the Honda (still driving it, fyi). We now have a car. Check. Awake for probably over 24 hours from traveling by now, we then went out to eat, then drove 2.5 hours to Marietta. We arrived in Marietta to our apartment and dumped our luggage. We had a storage unit full of our dorm stuff (books, office supplies, etc), so we drove there in a desperate exhaustive search for our coveted full sized air mattress. It’s probably 7 or 8pm by then, going on 30ish hours with no sleep, and with no avail, we could not find the air mattress. We gave up and drove back to our new apartment, pulled a bunch of clothes out of our bags, and that is what we slept on (in addition to piling clothes on top of ourselves). The next morning, with sore backs but rested!, we showered in our shower that had no curtain and got water ALL OVER the carpet (that’s how nice our first apartment was, it had 1970s carpet even in the bathroom), and needless to say we went on a mattress hunt. First we checked out 2 places that either A) were too expensive or B) couldn’t be delivered that day. On our 3^rd place, in more exhausted desperation I dumped a pile of those blessed gift cards out of my purse on the counter and said “I think I have a few more somewhere if need be, but which bed can we get with these?” and so we finally got a bed. The next couple days was a mad dash to get EVERYTHING one needs to live, poor Seth was putting together cheap furniture for 3 days straight, and a few days later junior year of college started. And so our marriage had began…

That was probably the craziest 2 weeks of my life to date. In that short time, we got married, bought a car, completely moved into an apartment starting from absolutely nothing, and started our 2^nd half of college. At the time we were exhausted, desperately trying to get an apartment livable off of a pile of gift cards, but happy and excited on newly wed adrenaline. I look back on those first few days of our marriage with love, nostalgia, and laughter. I am proud of us for doing it all on our own. We had a car with an unheard of amount of miles and a really crappy apartment, but it was our car and our apartment and we had worked really hard for those things. Matter of fact, Seth worked I think over 115 hours THE WEEK BEFORE OUR WEDDING just for some extra cash. We were 19 and 20 and wanted to be married and start our lives together. And go to college. So we did.

 So anyways, I graduate from PA school in December, and the current plan is to move to Seattle (99.9% sure). That is another FAR FAR move. The move from Ohio to Virginia was only a 4.5 hour drive, so that wasn’t too bad. But I forsee having some of the same experiences we had those first few weeks of our marriage. At least this next giant move we have a tiny bit more then a purse full of gift cards, starting with a car (everyone say a little prayer that the Honda will make it. Really. Do it right now, because I think we plan on driving), but we will probably just sell all our stuff and start over. I am excited about it. It’s an adventure! But I’m also having a tiny bit of PTSD from those first few weeks because it was just absolute craziness. From Alaska to Ohio to Virginia to Washington. What an interesting time in our lives this has been and will be. I am a habitual planner and organization freak, but I’m actively trying to soak up every last moment of Roanoke/east coast goodness and time with our friends here. I’ve just been thinking a lot about what the next stage of life will be for us and all the logistics that goes with it. Until then, still loving my pediatrics rotation and headed to Alaska in a short week and a half to spend the month with my big sis in Anchorage. <3