Married Life

In the words of Rod Serling..."imagine if you will", (and yes sometimes I feel my life is an episode from the Twilight Zone), getting married for the first time at 47, picking up and moving your whole life to a foreign country.  Yes that is what I did.  After living the single life for more than 25 years I married my soul mate (media naranja) and packed my bags and belongings and moved to Spain.

An easy transition?  Not exactly.  I thought it would be.  After all I was living a fairy tale, married to the man of my dreams - after waiting over 25 years for him to realize I was the one for him - and I was living in a foreign country.  Well, all that was fine and good...but the fairy tale did not last.

Where to begin?  Don't get me wrong.  I love him with all my heart but...(yes there is a but) being married is not all it is cracked up to be!  Especially if you have lived alone for over a quarter of a century!  

I now must pick up after someone other than myself.  I need to consider someone else in my plans.  I am washing clothes two, sometimes three times more a week than I used to.  (At least I have finally trained myself to check HIS pockets!) I am emptying the dishwasher more often these days.  Unloading my groceries from the store are now requiring more than one trip from the car.  Oh, and let's not forget that I must now check the toilet seat before I sit.

But there is the plus side to all of this also.  I am very lucky to have found a man who LOVES to cook.  Tho, I am not sure if it is so much that he loves to cook or if it is the fact that he thinks I don't know how to cook!  And yes, I do know how to cook, the problem is I don't know how to cook Spanish.  American cooking is a little "boring" for him.  But I am not complaining in the least.  He cooks, I clean, and we have a kitchen with a dishwasher!

And of course having someone to share things with.  I talk with him at the table while I eat, rather than argue with the television.  I have a sounding board that answers back with words rather than a "meow".  And the body in bed with me is not clawing at me to move over, or purring loudly in my ear.  Yes there are the snores but knowing who they belong to makes all the difference in the world.

Am I sorry I made this major move?  Depends on which day you ask me!  All in all I am not...but (there it is again) this relationship is still a work in progress.  But no, I am not sorry. You only get one chance in life and I was not going to pass it up.  I am with my soul mate and that makes it all worthwhile.  What makes it the hardest? Simply put, different cultures.  Oh, and the slight language barrier.  Yes I am bilingual, he is not, but at times my words do not come out the way I want.  But that is another posting.  

Starting Up

I decided to start up a blog after seeing one from a fellow American in Salamanca.  I figured, this will be a good way to possibly meet other Americans living in Salamanca.  Perhaps if they come across my blog they will contact me to meet up for a caña or café.

I am fairly new to Salamanca.  I moved here from upstate NY about 15 months ago.  I married my soul mate - a Spanish man I had met here almost 30 years ago when I studied abroad my junior year of college - and moved to his country so he could remain close to his son. 

It is not that the Spanish culture is new to me, nor is there the problem of the language, as I speak Spanish, but there is a definite difference in living here temporarily in your 20's as a student and living here in your 40's as a permanent resident. 

When I was first here all those years ago I shied away from Americans so as to make my experience as advantageous as possible.  But now I find that I am searching out my fellow Americans (and other foreigners as well) so that I have someone with whom I can share my experiences and who will understand completely what it is like to live in an "adopted" country.

So if you are so inclined check back occasionally as I will continue to write my blog and update my every day, mundane life (yes, I may live in a foreign country but my daily life is no different than it was in the USA: housekeeping, food shopping, cooking, working).  Yes things are different but they are also very much the same, it is just the scenery that has changed!  Oh and yes, now being married has been the biggest change!  But that is another posting!