My brother never missed a beat

When I first came to Anderson, I promised to give it at least three years before I made a decision about whether or not I wanted to really set down roots here.  As was expected, the first year was really quite tough simply because I have a hard time just getting to know people and I experienced so little community that first year that I was tremendously lonely.  Seeing as how its year four, things have obviously gotten better.  In fact, things are pretty awesome now.  I'm getting married this summer and I'm currently looking for a house so yeah, things have improved a little bit.  However, I screwed up.  I've been focused on me and all the craziness that's surrounded my life lately that I forgot about those who were there when life was crappy.  During my first spring break, I wasn't struggling just with the typical loneliness.  I had been involved in online dating again and having a smidgeon of success for the first time, but come February or so, I ran out of all my options and things hadn't been going well enough that I wanted to pour any more money into it.  Sara and I met about halfway between us to celebrate both our birthdays.  Celebrate was definitely a relative word that day.  She was dealing with some horrible parents and some tremendous stress and was having just as bad as time of it as I was.  That day, we were good for each other because it was someone else to commiserate with and we could dump out our feelings and not be judged or seemed needy and it was pretty helpful.  It was good enough in fact, that we decided to do it again the next year.  This time, things were looking a lot better.  I was really happy in a relationship and unbeknownst to me, so was Sara.  She ended up marrying her guy while I got dumped a month later so she obviously had chosen better, but that was different because we got to celebrate instead of commiserate and this time, we had Lisa there with us as well.  It was the start of a good tradition because it was a chance to be with family that I love dearly and don't get to see enough.  This year, I just forgot about it and I feel pretty awful about it.  I got distracted with my spring break trip and with wedding details and house searches and all the other good stuff that I forgot about how my foundations were built.  I'm sorry Sara.  Please forgive me.  I'll do better next year.

Don't Live a Life Untrue

I always knew that premarital counseling was essential, but the premarital class that Lindsey and I are in has been good to me for reasons different than what I expected.  Also, to be clear, this is a class as we're in it with five other couples and not yet counseling, which should hopefully come afterward when we're paired one on one with a couple who has been married for a while.  The homework we've had to do has done a great job of straightening out my expectations.  I always assumed that since I waited a long time to get married and never rushed into anything that I'd be good and ready and mature before I got married and everything would be wonderful.  My thoughts never corresponded with real life though.  I always kind of pictured my best friend as someone who it was always amazing to be around and there were never any bad days.  This is where the illusion ends.  When you get to live with your best friends, its not that there are no bad days.  There are actually a lot more bad days.  Its just that they get to see those days and they experience them with you and they help you through them whether its by doing something marvelous for you or for just being there when you need them to be there.  This is what I'm learning most - not that I'll have to work at my marriage but what kind of work it'll be.