And the Flood Begins: Our Anniversary

Ok, just to clarify, there was no flood on our anniversary.  The flood part is referring to the fact that I'm going to be posting A LOT in the next few days to finally catch up.  The first part of that blog flood will be on our anniversary.

So, as of July 9th, Tom and I have been married for 2 years!  I know everyone says this, but I truly feel like we are still newlyweds.  I still remember (and sometimes feel) the strangeness of being engaged to be MARRIED.  I still identify more with that than with being "just that married couple."  Maybe that's because not much has happened since we got married.......ha!!  Honestly, I know few people who have had a more eventful first two years.  Or more unconventional.  Let's recap, shall we?  We had a 2 1/2 month engagement.  During the engagement, Tom was just finishing law school and then was studying for the bar and was also working part time.  I was working full time.  We were getting married in a different state from the one in which we were living and, of course, we were broke (this last part will be a theme).  For the wedding, first we drove from Tulsa (where we were living) to Utah, for an open house and we left half of our belongings there (on purpose).  Then, we drove down to California for the wedding and reception.  We were almost there, when my car died.  We left it at some mechanic's shop in Norco and I never saw it again.

Right after the reception, we flew to Kauai for our honeymoon.  We've been dreaming of living there ever since.  After flying from Kauai back to California (where we left the other half of our stuff), we drove back to Oklahoma.

During those last 10 days there, we had another open house and Tom threw out his back.  So, he laid on the floor and studied for the bar and I would leave food and other important items around him so he wouldn't have to move while I went to work.  At the end of those 10 days, I flew to Taiwan and Tom flew to Washington.  While I spent my first few days in Taiwan, Tom took the BAR in Washington.  The day he finished, he went straight from the testing facility to the airport and flew to join me.

It would be another 3 weeks before we had a permanent place to stay.  For the next year we taught English, mostly to children but also to graduate students.  We were broke.

While there, I applied and was accepted to a Master's degree program in International Educational Development at the University of Pennsylvania.  After our year was up, we flew back to California, gathered our belongings, drove to Utah, gathered the rest of our belongings, fit whatever we could in Tom's Civic and drove to Philadelphia.  We fell in love, not with each other this time, but with the city.  We got two foster cats.  Tom tried to find a job there, but couldn't.  We were broke.  It seemed we were not meant to stay.  My program was only 1 year long, including a required summer internship.

So, this summer we both packed up (again) and headed off to Hamburg, Germany.  I interned with the UNESCO Institute of Lifelong Learning and Tom interned at a law firm.  People often ask us if we had a chance to travel while we were there.  The answer is no, because....we were broke.

When we left, in July, we still didn't know what our next move was, so we decided we would use Tom's parents' house in Utah as a base while we looked for jobs.  But first, we flew to California to attend my brother's wedding.  While there, Tom got the news that he had FINALLY gotten a job!!!  That takes us to where we are now.  Still living in the basement of Tom's parents' house, but with a SALARY.

I will make entire post about what our new life is like, but for now I'll just say that it has been more of an adjustment than all the other moves put together.  In just our 2 short years as a couple, we have lived in 5 different places and 3 different countries (4 if you count Philly...).  We have had 6 different jobs between us and have both been students.  We have made countless friends - ones that we will remember forever.  We have experienced extreme heartache and joy.  In short, I think what I am trying to say is that we have truly been each others' only constant.  It has been a hard couple of years, but it has been RICH.  We could not have made it through without each other, but it has been some of the best years of our lives.  Until now, we have spent very little time apart.  We have been together almost all day of everyday, until recently.  I love Tom and he loves me.  We are buddies.  And I think that about captures it.