They (and when I say they I mean mostly my mother) say that the first year of marriage is the hardest. That’s what you get at the bridal showers and the engagement parties. That’s what you get from the relatives when they come in for the big day. Hell, that’s even what you get from Allison, the woman who runs the bridal registry at The Bay downtown. “Go with the four slice toaster, trust me. It will come in handy that first year,†she told me as I hovered over the small appliances, price gun in hand. Panic welled in my chest as my thoughts turned to images of The Future Husband and I flinging toasted rye bread at one another in a fit of horrible rage. I scanned the toaster, nodding nervously as we headed towards cutlery.  The thing is, I didn’t really find the first year that hard at all. In fact, it felt like a strangely charmed time. There we were, in a great apartment that we owned, surrounded by fancy shmancy new dishes and about seven dozen glitsy wine glasses. We had more than enough rye bread to keep the toaster going on snowy winter mornings, a flat screen TV and the ability to do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted, for the very first time in our adult lives. What more could you want?
I, however, have always been one of those people who likes to mix things up. Nice set-up, good jobs, no problems on the horizon? Do something drastic, and do it now, I find myself saying. And such is how the first year of bliss ended and the second year began. I couldn’t help but wonder about my decisions of late as I sit here, surrounded by boxes.  These boxes, however, aren’t actually in my (Sold!) condo. They’re the boxes my husband has pulled out from beneath the stairs at his parents’ house. These are the boxes he never unpacked after university. These are the boxes he will stuff even fuller with the childhood paraphanalia still lingering in his former bedroom. And these, I now realize, are the boxes we’re going to fight about the most.  My husband’s sort-and-pack system is simple. Sort of. He retrieves a box from the basement or the crawl space. He opens the box and immediately uses whatever is inside. Say, a long Australian instrument that stands (when assembled) seven feet tall and makes a low moaning sound that wakes cats and dogs neighbourhood-wide. He then promptly grins and raises his eyebrows. I raise my eyebrows and grin, before giving him a sympathetic shake of the head (where the heck are we going to stuff that thing in a Toronto-sized house?). At which point, The Mother-In-Law comes in to comment on the beauty of the instrument itself and how well it will go next to The Husband’s childhood aquarium. “Aquarium?†I ask hoping I have heard her wrong. “Aquarium!†He grins as he hoists box 37-B over his head. More grinning, more eye brow raising, more gentle – but sympathetic and understanding – shaking of the head. “Aquarium,†I say softly to myself, wondering just what else we’re about to discover in this place. I quickly make an important decision: packing is going to require a heck of a lot more champagne.
I have a distinct feeling that moving away is going to be a lot like high school graduation. A lot of hand holding and hair holding. A lot of weeping. A lot of cocktails (God willing). A lot of startling revelations; like the fact that the rest of my life is about to change drastically. And, hopefully, a lot of new beginnings. Yikes.
