Relationships in med school pt 3: Marriage Review yr 1

first dance - katie's favorite part of marriage

Since I've written book reviews, I figured it was only natural that I review other things, like marriage.  About a year ago (according to my wife) we got married.  

chronicled here: link to pre-wedding running diary

Sidenote - the actual wedding isn't chronicled because I was too stressed out to remember anything.  It's like I blacked out on cortisol.  Note to introverts: don't schedule too many social events before a wedding.  Or a wedding, maybe.  Wait, I could get in trouble for saying that.  

Anyways, here's my thought process on how I got married.

what are gods, anyway?

After attaining all of my collegiate goals, and feeling pretty empty about it, I decided the meaning of life was not goals.  Sidenote - I still love goals and I'm extremely goal-oriented, I'm just trying hard not to let it dominate my life.  So my second hypothesis was - life is about what you do day to day.  One of my wise friends had a quote in their facebook profile that said - "no one suspects the days to be gods."  The things you do everyday are the gods you worship.  

And one god I want to worship is other people - I figured the best way to do that would be to find someone cool from Wyoming and make them hang out with me all the time.  Sidenote - I feel like that's marriage at it's core.  Making someone hang out with you all the time.  

Overall, it's been the best year of my life.  Here's why:

Being married is like being on a team.  

At the beginning of every week Katie and I have a team meeting to recap the last week, plan what we can do for each other, and figure out how we can support each other spiritually.  

a team

But the best example of marriage team is how Katie was there for me throughout that long long interview year. 

She planned a wedding while I struggled through countless revisions of my AMCAS and a giant pile of secondaries.  Less than 20 days after marriage I flew out to Minneapolis to do my first med school interview.  Katie graciously drove me to the airport before the 6 AM departure, and picked me up after the 12 AM arrival.  She survived in a big bed all by herself as I went on six cross country trips.  She patiently waited as her life for the next seven years was hanging in the balance - would we stay in Portland?  Move to St. Louis?  Move to Charleston? Will we be taking on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt?

And if there's anything I learned from seven years of running competitive cross country and track, it's that life feels more meaningful as a team.  Everything we do has a purpose bigger than ourselves, which is great if you're into stuff like that.  

So anyways, that's what year one of marriage is like.  Stay tuned for updates on M2.

ps - happy first anniversary katie!

See you on the other side,

from ken