Relationships

Some of the mundane tasks in life are often taken for granted.  Yet when something tragic happens and those mundane abilities are stripped from us, we then realize the great gift it was once before.  My grandmother, now, can walk to the restroom on her own:

She had a stroke at the tail end of Betty and my honeymoon in May, leaving the left side of her body numb.  She could not lift her left leg nor left arm and would not ever look to the left.  I visited her in the hospital about a week before our LA reception in early June and she was not very coherent.  She needed to be carried out of bed to go to the restroom, somebody at her side to feed her and an occupational therapist there to retrain her how to dress and comb her hair.  On top of that, she was greatly depressed, constantly saying that she is a “no use person,” in Chinese.

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Gosh, it still surprises me that I have a husband now. I’m getting more used to saying “my husband Alex”. It makes me smile now, thinking about my husband. You know, I think I only blog when Alex is away (as he is now). So maybe the only way I’ll be blogging regularly is to have Alex go away more often (but if any of his bosses are reading this, I’m not saying I want him to go on more business trips … unless, I get to go too – do you have clients in New Zealand or Africa?).

Anyways, a lot of people have asked me how married life is. For me, I’ve found the transition to married life with Alex to be quite smooth so far, praise God. It is definitely very different from living with a housemate. At first, I thought moving in with Alex will be like my experiences with living in shared houses and with housemates. But it’s been a very different experience. Perhaps it’s also living with Alex that makes a difference ( you know I love you!) but I also think it’s been myself who’s entered this new lifestyle with some expectations of my own. I hear the first year of marriage is a lot about figuring out our ways living with one another and hopefully, with God’s grace, we’ll have more good times than bad ones by the end of the year.

I have heard about how a significant other quickly becomes your “default friend,” but never had I thought I would become a “default girlfriend.”  Just today, Betty asked me if I wanted to go with her to attend the Wedding Fair tomorrow.  She said, “Just to warn you, there’ll be a LOT of women there.”  She asked a girlfriend of her’s who had not yet responded.  As a faithful fiancé, I grit my teeth and said, “For you, I will be your backup girlfriend! ”  If that is not sacrificial love, I don’t know what is.  Thankfully I mean, regretfully, her girlfriend said she could make it and will.  ;p