these changes aint changing me

i had a few friends over for dinner friday night, and one bought me a vase. it was such a grown up person kinda gift. like, that's it. we're at the age where we can give each other vases and it's perfectly normal (or, should be perfectly normal at least).

anyway, one friend asked me if married life is different than non-married life, and that question has stuck in my head. in a way, i don't feel like i can answer it yet because at the moment i'm in a little bubble, cut off from the world and my usual life. normally, at this point in the summer, i'd be in jeddah surrounded by family and the dessert heat and whatnot. i haven't spent an august in america since i was in single digit ages, and never in virginia. so i really have nothing to compare my life right now with. with it being the middle of summer, there are also a lot fewer responsibilities waiting around for us. so i'm living in some kind of twilight zone at the moment, and comparing this to my "normal life" is just not possible. it's like we're stopped at the top of the ferris wheel, giving us time to look around for a minute before it starts turning again. once my family comes back and school starts up and the wheel starts moving, i can really say how different it is.

here a few small ways in which i've noticed it is different so far, though:

[one] i sleep in a lot more. i used to wake up between six:thirty and seven every day, sometimes staying in bed until seven:thirty. now, i don't wake up until at least ten:thirty, usually closer to eleven. yesterday i didn't get out of bed until one.

[two] after opening a package i got in the mail, a piece of plastic stayed on the floor for four days. until i got annoyed with it and threw it away. my dad would have had a heart attack over it being on the floor the second he saw it, and it would have never lasted four days out of the trash.

[three] i'm used to living in a town house with my two parents, two brothers, and one of my sisters. there are always a bunch of people everywhere. there is a considerable lack of humans in this apartment compared to what i'm used to.

[four] i'm one of those people that speaks in quotes. i'm constantly spouting a quote from a book or movie or a lyric from a song. my family (mainly my sister) knew all my references and understood them. my husband seems not to have read any of the same books, watched any of the same movies, or listened to any of the same music as me. a lot of what i say now either gets misunderstood or requires an explanation. i have subconsciously started to censor the quotes in what i say.

[five] my dad doesn't drink cold water, so at home the brita filter sat on the kitchen counter by the sink. here, it sits in the fridge.

[six] i walk up and down stairs a lot less. like, hardly ever.

[seven] i used to watch gsn and nickelodeon all the time. now i watch the food network and nickelodeon.

but besides these little nuances in my everyday life, i really don't feel like i have changed much at all. i know a lot of people who seemed to switch themselves in for a completely different version at their wedding, but i'm just not one of them. i still eat candy for breakfast and ignore everyone to read for hours when i feel like it. i'm just as lazy and awful at keeping in touch with everyone as i ever was. i'm still messy and obnoxious and i really can't see myself ever being anything else.

*All These Things That I've Done - The Killers