The Long Haul

I asked Morgan a week or so ago if he felt any different when he's out and about now that he's married. He thought about it for a minute and then said, "no, not really." I have to admit, I was a little surprised. He said that he's felt like he was "taken" long enough that it wasn't really a change to him.

I do feel different, though. It's hard to explain or justify, and while I wouldn't say that I feel any more committed to him than I did before the wedding, I do feel more visibly committed to him. We have rings. We have the same last name. We are "husband" and "wife" instead of "boyfriend" and "girlfriend." We would have to go through legal outlets to change what we are to each other. Maybe it's more feeling like we're perceived differently than we were before.

With all the talk about divorce rates and proclamations that marriage is dead, it can sometimes seem like the act of getting married is pointless except from a dry, legal standpoint. The media loves doom and gloom - whatever blah blah statistic of marriages end in divorce, and blah blah percentage think getting married is hopelessly outdated. But for all the publicity the Arnold Schwarzenegger-Maria Shriver story about a marriage ending after 25 years receives, there are the stories like Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly if you look for them. (While he is on the final shuttle mission, he has taken her wedding ring with him and left his with her on Earth. And that's not even getting into how much he's stood by her since her shooting.)


Statistics be damned - I'm in it for the long haul, whatever that may entail. I can't wait to see those anniversaries start to stack up. My grandparents made it to 46 years, and although we're getting a later start, it might still happen, right?

Life is Still Good

While our previous entry highlighted some of the disappointments we've gone through since the wedding, I wanted to shed some light on the other side of the picture.  The trip to China falling through was definitely hard to take - we had done a lot of planning based on being there for the next year.  And it was hard to get through; Ursula has been wanting to go to China for so long, and I felt like I had really let her down.  But we did get through it, and while spending another year in Denver isn't what we would have hoped for, we are making the best of it.

We have actually been doing a lot of really fun things lately.  A few weeks ago, it was National Parks week, so we went to Rocky Mountain National Park for the first time.  The weather was amazing; it was still pretty cold up there, but we had sunshine, and there were some awesome clouds hanging over the tallest mountains that made them seem to just blend in to the sky.

I love how you can't tell where the mountains end.

More recently, with the weather getting warmer, we've been doing some fun things around Denver.  We checked out the Art Walk on Santa Fe, where all of the galleries open their doors to the public.  There was an especially cool light and sound exhibit with a bunch of homemade instruments to play and some videos projecting on the walls.  We have also been travelling around the city following the Food Networks Great Food Truck Race, where a bunch of food trucks from all over the country are in town competing for something or other.  This has been really interesting, because the locations are all rumor-based.  We've had some really great food from a couple of the trucks, and plan to check out a couple more today.

The Crab Burger from the Lime Truck was incredible! And so was the Truffled Cheesesteak!

So we are regrouping as far as our plans for the future - I still have a little ways to go to finish my degree - but we are having fun, and making the most of our time here.  We will keep everyone posted about our plans as they come along.