My god, it’s been so long since I’ve been on my computer that I have half-forgotten how to get around on it. And even though I have been writing posts nigh near continuously in my head, now that I am sitting in front of the keyboard I hardly know what to say.

It has been a very full two weeks tying up my single life and starting my married life – and just to clarify, I feel like I just got married for the first time – and not in the Madonna like-a virgin-touched-for-the very-first time way, but actually married for the first time. I don’t count my marriage to Bella’s dad for these reasons:
1. Neither of us believed in the institution of marriage – we were very counter-establishment at the time, and beyond that, neither of us believed that we would stay together for a particularly long time.
2. We only got legally married in case of medical catastrophe (to avoid possible worst case scenarios at the hospital when they won’t let girlfriends in).
3. A woman down the street married us over our kitchen counter.
4. Neither Bella’s dad nor I put an ounce of thought into what we were saying or what we were doing; indeed, Bella’s dad’s favorite saying in the context of marriage was, “Run for the hills!”
5. The woman who married us insisted I put on a dress for the ceremony. She swore that I would regret it forever if I didn’t. She was wrong and I subsequently gave that dress away.
6. We had a witness only because a friend had dropped by unexpectedly that day.
7. No family attended the ceremony – in fact, I don’t know if or when I let them know what we had done.
8. No rings were exchanged. At one point we briefly toyed with the idea of getting rings tattooed on our fingers.
9. There was no celebration of any kind that I can remember.
10. And the clincher: Our marriage certificate was printed on a photocopied image of a doily.

So, yes, we were legally married and I had to get a legal divorce (and split everything 50/50), but there was never a real wedding – or a real marriage for that matter.

My relationship and marriage to Chad operates so much at the opposite end of the spectrum that I can’t even bring myself to write about it in the same post.