Hello, Beautiful!

I’ve got a major life update for ya’ll – and a little bit of ‘splainin’ to do – so let’s dive in, shall we?

Ok . . . Confession: Not to be Captain Obvious, but I haven’t been blogging regularly lately . . . something you may have noticed in the past few weeks.

I threw a Memorial Day No-Bake Pie recipe your way back in late May and a yummy Hard Lemonade recipe in mid-June, but other than the Kendra Scott Shopping Party + Giveaway I held on Instagram, it’s been pretty quiet over here on Weddings & Wanderlust . . . . .

The Rain (or Monsoon, Really)

To be perfectly honest with you all, 2017 has challenged me and my husband – physically, mentally, and emotionally – much more than we ever thought possible. We rang in Thomas’s law school graduation – and the New Year – to the completely unexpected news of our law school utterly failing us in every way possible. Thomas had to handle bar study on his own instead of fully utilizing the $3,000.00 course and “bar coach” we had paid for, all while worrying about his resume, job prospects, and reputation.

I guess dealing with that catastrophe wasn’t quite enough on his plate, because by late fall/early winter, I had started experiencing sharp lower back pain. By January 2017 I was in and out of every general practitioner, specialist, and surgeon’s office possible, weighing all of my options. By early February 2017, I had lost the ability to walk, couldn’t feel the right side of my body, and was set to undergo outpatient spine surgery to remove the 1/3 of my disc that had . . . oh, ya know, just slipped right the heck out of my spinal column and disrupted my right nerve. Good times.

The surgery was successful, but I spent the next month on bed rest, and the next month after that was a whole lot of me getting used to walking and bending again. Thomas had to sacrifice a lot of his bar study hours to care for me, and despite how incredibly intelligent he is, we just didn’t know if he would be able to pass the February 2017 Bar Exam or not . . . especially with all the law school drama and spine surgery realness thrown his way during those critical 9 weeks.

Fast Forward to mid-March, when I officially launched Weddings & Wanderlust, and things were starting to look up all around. I was feeling a little bit better with each day, and Thomas had started a temporary Document Review position with Ernst & Young.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the life of a law student, “doc review” as we call it is sort of a “right of passage” in the legal world. These jobs are typically temporary positions with no benefits or any guaranteed length of work at an extremely low rate of pay per hour, particularly for someone with a law degree.

But, with large-scale litigation comes lots of evidence to sort through, so there are always plenty of these positions available at various companies. As you can imagine, though . . . it royally sucks to sit at a computer screen all day until your eyes glaze over from reading legal documents, working in a position – and at a pay – you simply did not go to law school (and almost $200,000.00 into debt) for.

In early April we were elated to find out that Thomas did pass the February 2017 Bar Exam! We were sure once he was sworn in as an attorney and officially changed his name to Thomas Wesley Graham, III, Esq. there’d be no stopping him. But despite Thomas’s qualifications based on his diverse legal work experience during law school and his stellar grades (I’m tellin’ ya . . . he even scored the highest final grade in his class . . . in law school . . . ), our law school just couldn’t stay out of the news.

Our alumni started getting responses from recruiters stating major law firms were not even interested in seeing resumes from our graduates. Knowing how incredible my husband is while also knowing some places didn’t even want to look at his resume because of the name “Charlotte School of Law” at the top (go ahead, make some tea, give it a Google) was gut-wrenching.

I remember one Saturday in late April when the lack of openings in the legal market had started to weigh on us, heavily. We sat down on the couch together and totaled up confirmation email after confirmation email to see just how many jobs Thomas had applied to with no success. We stopped counting at 200 . . . . .

Meanwhile, we had started to pay the almost $6,000.00 out-of-pocket we owed for my February spine surgery (and yes, that’s with health insurance). We were working out payment plans with 5 different companies’ billing offices, but we were paying those bills gladly, just thankful that with every dollar spent I was able to walk again. However, by early May we were surprised with some more medical problems stemming from the procedure, and we officially got knocked down to the lowest point we’ve ever been as a couple, in all of our almost-7 years together.

We’d been through four years of college together and all the drama that goes along with it. We’d been financially independent from our parents since almost the time we met one another as sophomores. We’d moved from Tennessee to Maryland to live with family while we saved money to move ourselves to North Carolina for law school. We’d made it through the weight-of-the-world stress that comes with law school and studying for the bar exam. We’d graduated law school with honors and all kinds of certificates, and we’d passed our respective bar exams on our first try. We’d budgeted like crazy to plan and pay for our own dream wedding, and it truly had been the most beautiful day of our entire lives.

But yet, here we were as newlyweds, at our very lowest. We were both battling depression, and it was hard for either of us to lift the other up with us both feeling so low. We were in a dark period, ya’ll, and talking about my favorite makeup, clothing, or recipes of the moment was just the farthest thing from my mind. Some days, it felt downright wrong to even post an Instagram pic, like a lie I was telling.

I have always wanted this blog to be a place where I can be open and honest with ya’ll. Sharing and caring is what this blog is all about. But there are just some times in life when you need to step back from the world, pour on extreme amounts of self care, hold tight to your husband like your life depends on it, and wait it out. That is exactly what I’ve been doing these past two months, and I wouldn’t take it back for a second.

We’ve shed a lot of tears together, and we’ve sent up a lot of prayers together. We’ve wondered why life as newlyweds has been curve ball after never-ending curve ball instead of wedded bliss. We’ve blamed each other, and we’ve blamed ourselves. But somewhere in the middle of the pain and uncertainty, we clung to each other and decided we would get through whatever the hell else life wanted to throw our way. And we have been stronger ever since.

The Rainbow

There’s a saying out there, something sort of like:

“A strong marriage rarely has two strong people at the same time. Rather, it is two people who take turns being strong for each other in the moments when the other feels weak.”

That’s all fine and good until you are both weak and beaten down, and neither of you has the strength to stand, let alone lift the other up.

We learned that a strong marriage isn’t created when you speak the vows you wrote to one another while tears stream down your cheeks. A strong marriage isn’t created when you dress up in the most beautiful clothing you’ve ever worn, no matter how many friends or family members are there to share the moment. A strong marriage isn’t created when you go on your prepaid, pre-planned honeymoon and relish in everyone’s “Awwws” as you share wedded bliss. The reality, my friends, is that there’s no magic moment that creates a strong marriage.

In fact, a strong marriage is created from the far-from-magical moments, the moments where you are forced to choose each other. You see, there is no challenge in life that is strong enough to destroy your marriage . . . as long as you are both wiling to stop fighting against each other and start fighting for each other.

You see, there’s a belief in our society – particularly in our generation – that when we get married, we are gifted this “marriage box” of everything we’ve been waiting for in a marriage. The truth is – and what we’ve learned – is that marriage is the start of a very empty box, with just two imperfect people in it. There is no automatic love or strength packaged and ready to go in your marriage when you say, “I do.” Love is in people, and those people have to put it into their marriage. Strength is developed over time and experiences, based on the way you cling to one another throughout it all.

There’s no one else I’d rather cling to than Thomas, through the bad times AND the good. Our life as newlyweds definitely hasn’t been what we expected it to be – quite the opposite – but I wouldn’t trade any of it for a single second. Every single struggle has only strengthened our love for one another. It’s been an opportunity to grow as a couple and develop our love to something much stronger than before the day we said, “I do.”

What We’re Up To Now

Thomas accepted a job offer two days ago with Bank of America as a Commercial Real Estate Attorney, his dream area of law (at a major corporation, eek!). I am so proud of how hard Thomas worked to get to this point, and I can’t wait to see where this new career takes him. Six months of never-ending job applications, prayers, stress mixed with a little patience, and dedication paid off in a major way, and I couldn’t be happier for him!

I’ve been working on accepting the medical problems I’ve dealt with this year (and I’ve been doctor-appointment-free for one month now!). Being impressed with what my body can endure instead of beaten down by it. Being positive and welcoming for the future instead of imagining everything that could go wrong with it.

Instead of letting it scare me that I have a 20% chance of re-herniation – at any point in time – I have decided to 100% (see what I did there?) own the fact that I need to get strong. After meeting with my surgeon multiple times post-op to discuss what the best course of action is for my back, the answer is actually resoundingly simple:

**Get Strong.**

Strengthening my back and core is the top priority, according to Dr. Spector, who highly recommended Pilates above anything else. After hours of research, conversations with loved ones, and discussing with Dr. Spector to make sure he approved, I am very excited about the decision I’ve made.

Instead of taking a few Pilates classes here and there without ever really committing; instead of actually committing to Pilates classes while not really knowing if I’m positioning myself correctly; instead of paying for a Pilates studio membership on top of our gym membership; instead of having the option to stay in the back of the room and not give my absolute all in every single class, and; instead of chancing that this new goal will be anything but a lifetime commitment . . .

I have decided to own this journey 100% by becoming a Barre/Pilates Instructor with Xtend Barre Charlotte.

I absolutely love my job as a corporate attorney, and I love the creativity and connection my blog brings me, but I’ve been lacking a physical goal to work towards, and I am so very excited that I’ve found the perfect one! I’ll be heading down to Boca Raton, Florida for training later this summer – and can’t wait to share that experience with you – but until then, I’ll meet you at the barre! To tell you, “I’ve got to get my booty in shape for training!” would be the understatement/fake news of the century.

So, there you have it: our life as newlyweds, on the real-real. It hasn’t been easy, but nothing worth it in life ever is. We are so excited to see what the rest of this new summer season brings our way. Whatever it may be, we’re ready. Stronger together.

And for those of you who keep asking us when we’re going to have kids . . .