You’re receiving this because at some point over the past five years, you got signed up to get my updates about my adventures, whether those adventures happened to be in Mexico, Canada, or Ghana. As the vast majority of you probably know, the year and change that has passed since my last update in Ghana have been so full (and, generally speaking, so full of good things) that I almost can’t believe it managed to fit into a single calendar year.
First things first: after years of wondering if I was destined to found a celibate Protestant monastic movement, the question is now definitively settled in the negative. Late last fall, I re-connected with an old friend named Jennifer Peters. Very quickly, I realized that this was one very special lady, and she (for whatever reason) had similar thoughts about me…except, of course, for the “lady” part. We started dating over Christmas. I had decided that I wanted to marry her by mid-January. We got engaged in March. Our wedding was this past July 26th, and thanks to all of you that were there, it went better than either of us could have imagined (construction zone and all!) I know that stereotypically, guys aren’t supposed to think twice about the wedding—as my dad has astutely pointed out, a groom is typically little more than a living prop in the bride’s show. However, thanks to Jenn, the tireless efforts of our parents, and the many wonderful people who came (from as far as Arizona and Florida) to show their love and support, it was a day that both of us will remember as a wonderful start to a wonderful life together.
We honeymooned for four days on the Oregon coast, and then flew out to Minnesota for the wedding of high school friend (and fellow long-term member of the confirmed bachelors’ club) Jordan. Apparently, when it rains, it pours! Then, immediately after getting back, we rented a U-Haul and headed to Seattle to start our new home together. Since then, life has been a blur (and for the most part, a very happy one). For a comprehensive review of life at the Thomas household so far, I present you with the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Good: Honestly, this category comprises almost everything about married life so far. (I know…disgusting newlyweds!) I love being married to Jenn, and she gives me new reasons every day to conclude that she was a woman well worth waiting for. She gives me grace—more than that, she embodies grace for me—in ways that I never even would have thought to ask for in my bachelor days. She encourages me to see the good, the true, and the beautiful in ways that she can’t even know. She consistently affirms me and in so doing inspires me and empowers me to be a better man. It is hard to think of how to encapsulate the wonder that is married life into anything like a coherent paragraph, so I will simply give an example that has been a surprisingly appropriate metaphor for our married relationship as a whole so far: a tandem bicycle.
A few months ago, we met up with my friends Zach and Caitlin—an avid biking and Corgi-loving couple who had just celebrated the fourth anniversary. As the married veterans, we asked them over breakfast what their advice was to the “new kids on the block.” Their answer was not one I had expected from my previous experiences of marriage advice: Zach said, apparently completely seriously, that we should get a tandem bicycle. I know, I know: the disgusting cuteness might be making you want to vomit about now. Still, we took them up on their suggestion, and for a wedding present, Jenn’s sister Heather bought us our very own tandem bicycle. Since then, we have been on at least a ride or two a week, using the tandem for errands or just for pleasure cruises along some of Seattle’s amazing bike trails along the Puget Sound or Lake Washington. It is actually a fairly practical way of in-city transportation: it’s free parking, built-in exercise, and with Seattle traffic, it’s actually not significantly slower than a car would be. More importantly, however, it is a surefire means of pre-paid marriage therapy. It provides a way of getting in quality time together. It also provides us a situation which at times can be high-stress and bring out the weak spots in our relationship that, in calmer moments, we can gloss over or hide at this blissful state in our newly married life. The way the tandem is sized, the front seat (the “captain’s” seat) is too tall for Jenn and the back seat (the “stoker’s” position) is too short for me, so we’re stuck in our respective places. These fixed seats have proven remarkably appropriate for us, since it has forced us to develop skills and habits that, based solely on our natural inclinations, we wouldn’t even realize that we needed to develop.
Riding a tandem effectively requires effective communication: the captain is the only one who can see what’s coming, so he must communicate it with the stoker, or else the numerous bumps and potholes that are an inevitable part of the Seattle biking experience catch her completely surprised and unprepared, and sudden turns, starts, or stops can be an occasion for the whole thing to topple over.
Tandem riding also requires trust: since she can’t see anything and doesn’t have any brakes or shifters, Jenn is effectively helpless on the back of the bike, and has to trust me to get us where we’re going. This has definitely occasioned a few near-mishaps; these are mostly due to me making a sudden turn, or starting across a street with a car coming, or trying to dodge in and out of Seattle traffic without effectively communicating what I’m doing (in most cases, because I don’t exactly know what I’m doing before I do it). I have quickly had to learn to be a better communicator and Jenn has quickly learned to trust me (though admittedly I do not always deserve that trust!), and her act of trusting me has empowered me and encouraged me to have the confidence to lead better and not do the sometimes stupid things that I got in the habit of doing on a solo bike.
Bad: This would be better named “challenging” rather than “bad,” but the “Good, the Challenging, and the Ugly” just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. As we’ve started our new life together in a new city, new apartment, new jobs (or lack thereof as the case may be), there have been a number of adjustments which, naturally, have brought with them challenges. For starters, Jenn was able to transfer from the Eugene Starbucks to the Queen Anne location, which is awesome; the un-awesome part is that she’s mostly been working opening shifts so far, which means that both of us get to wake up at 3AM and my poor wife is zombified for the rest of the day. Additionally, she was just hired on for a second part-time job at a Physical Therapy clinic; since she needs to gain additional job shadowing hours for her next round of Occupational Therapy applications at UW, it made sense to do it in a setting where at least she’d get paid for it. However, this means that she’s working a combined total of more than full-time (with the second job located a half-hour or so away), so her biggest challenge at present is drawing boundaries at both jobs to try and make sure that she doesn’t get completely sucked in, chewed up, and spat out.
The challenge for me, conversely, has been not having a job. (See “The Ugly”, below). So, Jenn and I are at the moment living an inverted version of 1950s marital bliss, where she brings home the bacon (or the weekly bag of Starbucks coffee, as it were), and I cook, clean, shop, and generally try to be a homemaker. I’ve really enjoyed most parts of being a domestic; thanks to the generosity of our wedding guests, we have an excellently stocked kitchen, and I am proud to say I have used every gadget and utensil in it. (I think). The dehydrator has proven especially effective, and I have been indulging my inner hunter-gatherer by collecting apples from the trees that grow around our neighborhood and preserving them for future use. However, it has definitely been difficult for my masculine ego not to be able to help out financially, and since Jenn’s childhood dream was being a stay-at-home mom, it’s been an adjustment for her as well.
Which leads to…
The Ugly: This subtitle, I feel, needs no disclaimer. For a liberal arts major, at least, job hunting is ugly, ugly business. Basically, it’s like working sales on commission, but what you’re selling is yourself, and your “commission” is simply the opportunity to try to sell yourself again. (And eventually, hopefully, be able to do some non-sale-by-commission work, but that’s the distant pot of gold at the end of the rainbow). The good news is that I’ve gotten a lot of practice on my sales pitch. The week we moved up to Seattle, I had three interviews. Since then, I’ve had five or six more, and I’ve applied to somewhere around 15 different positions, ranging from teaching to tutoring to administration and office work. The bad news is, apparently my pitch still needs some work, because so far, like Paul Simon, I “get no offers.” Worse, I’m not even sure exactly what it is that’s missing. This past week, I started doing before-school Spanish language classes for elementary-aged students, and this has been fun (although, since we are expressly prohibited from using English in the classroom, trying to get non-Spanish-speaking students to understand what I want them to do is a bit challenging—a lot like charades). However, this job is only five hours a week, so it’s not exactly a “career” type path.
This situation is difficult for us financially, certainly; neither of us are big spenders, but in an expensive city like Seattle, trying to make do on one-ish incomes is a bit of a challenge. Even more, though, it’s been difficult for me psychologically. I cannot stress enough how wonderful and supportive Jenn has been through this process, and without her, I honestly don’t know what I would do. She makes it a pleasure to vacuum and cook and clean, and never fails to be appreciative and make me feel like a king, even if ours is an impoverished kingdom. Still, unemployment has highlighted for me a recurring question: what am I here for? I’ve had many people remind me of how talented I am and how much potential I have, and I greatly appreciate these reminders; nonetheless, I have had a decidedly difficult time trying to figure out how to convert that potential into marketable skills. My much-vaunted skillset may not be “useless”—it has many potential uses, I believe—but at present, it does seem to be “worthless.” Though I would be very happy to live in a world without money I believe that I am a decent writer, teacher, musician, and/or office worker, and I am willing to learn whatever other skills may be necessary to work (and I’m not particularly picky as to what kind of work), but I feel a bit like Joshua walking around the outside of Jericho, the walls closed off.
In conclusion: many of you have prayed for me during my previous adventures, and I cannot tell you how much those prayers have meant. Please don’t stop now. And, of course, if anyone knows of any Seattle-area jobs for which I might be qualified, don’t hesitate to let me know.