Tyler and I are what some might classify, to a certain extent, as "A reservation for two, please." Living in Salt Lake away from our friends in Provo, we haven't really ventured far out of our little 600 sq. foot apartment when it comes to our circle of friends. (And if you met our neighbor, you might know why). I'm on a "Oh hey! How's work? Well that's great to hear! Have a good one! Oh thanks. I will too! See ya" level with several of the women in my ward, especially those in the Young Women presidency, but most of our interaction has been within the confines of either the church walls, or in a structured mutual activity -- where my role is pretty much outlined. No improv comedy necessary. Tyler and I have conveniently -- and not by grand design, I'm sure -- avoided every ward activity planned since we joined the ward in August. Most of the time we had a legitimate excuse. Like that one day my hair just wouldn't curl. Man that was a rough day. Devastating, even. But seriously, we hadn't been to a ward activity. We're faithful visiting and home teachers. We fulfill our callings. We do service when we can. It's just that when we have free time, we either like to spend it with the friends that we've already built comfortable relationships with (graveyards not necessarily required), with family who love us unconditionally despite our weird looks, or with each other -- in which case we usually default to a movie or try to discover a cure to AIDS. So when this last Saturday rolled around, we quickly found ourselves in unfamiliar territory...
It was an Elder's Quorum activity. "Italian Night" they called it. Tyler signed up to bring an Italian dish (naturally) and I cooked it. Because lucky for me, the wives were invited too! I was beyond excited. After a meatball mishap and last minute tweaks to the dish (at 6:40pm when it started at 6:30) we headed out the door in the snow to search for our death -- I mean gathering. We arrived, hand in hand, to the host's house, and were immediately greeted by trumpets announcing our arrival. Ok, so there were two hippy guys from our ward playing the guitar. Close enough. Anyway, we both quickly scoped out the scene of our first married ward activity: the living room was full of couples. Little babies scooted across the floor, drool lagging behind them. Older kids could be heard in the back bedroom killing each other on some video game. All the seats were taken and we had to awkwardly walk into the room and people shifted so that we could sit down. Luckily, one of the girls I was on "that" level with ended up sitting next to me, and we could talk for awhile. At first glance, despite the awkward entrance, it didn't seem to be too bad. Before digging into the meatballs, etc. we went around and introduced ourselves, couple by couple. It was precious. And then we proceeded to get food, couple by couple. Long gone were the Chuck-e-Cheese days, where a mad dash was made for the greasy pizza pie with grubby, token-germ hands. This was MUCH more civilized. I mean, come on. We're married for gosh sakes. After sitting down and eating, the conversation turned to married topics: how people's new jobs were going, what their kids were up to, how in the world an idiot like New Gingrich could win in South Carolina... OK, that's what Tyler and I really wanted to talk about, but you never know in whose company you stand. So we just talked about our jobs. Not our kids. Eventually, the party began dying down, and when Tyler was caught by the bishop mid-pie getting, I found myself sitting awkwardly on the couch -- at a married party, but by myself. I would have felt more comfortable in my spandex just then. Luckily, the host's wife came and sat down next to me, said she didn't know me, and asked my name. She had me at hello. We began a 30 minute conversation about missions and Machu Pichu and her adorable red-headed son, Sam. When Tyler escaped, he came and sat next to us and joined our conversation. It carried us well into the night (ok, maybe 8pm) and then it was that time, when all the married people grabbed their rug-burned scooting babies, bundled up, and headed to their individual abodes. We were no different. Although my rug-burned baby was much bigger. Some things never get old...
All and all, socializing as a married person was really not as intimidating as it may have first seemed. Tyler and I handled it decently well in my opinion (when he wasn't scooting around on the floor, that is). I could even see some advantages to tag team socializing. I could discreetly let him know when he was shout-talking to the person next to him, who was cringing at the seismic sound waves hitting him across the face, and he could slyly point his finger to the space between his front teeth, indicating to me that the piece of spinach I had stuck in there had run its course as mouth adornment.
We may have not found a cure to AIDS (after all, Rome wasn't built in a day!) and we may have come across as novices (dang meatballs), but we overcame a great obstacle in our life that night. We graduated, if you will. Unfortunately, however, much like the majority of American high school students, graduation in no way reflects an increase in maturity. Tyler will still run around the neighborhood in his spandex. But maybe next time we do something insane, we'll have married friends to join in the fun. And their drooling baby can scoot along right behind.
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| So happy to have each other. |
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