Transitions: No, no, no, not in my house.

For a moment, I thought that I had found freedom. Freedom from the question I had been asked nearly too many times to maintain sanity: "Sooooooooooooo, how's the wedding planning going?"

To all of you who are simply kind, loving people who like to check in with their fellow humans and make a conversational connection, I apologize. I'm not much for small-talk. I'm an awkward, introverted extrovert, and I don't respond especially well to inanity.

The problem that multiplied my rage was that wedding planning wasn't hard. It wasn't challenging. It wasn't beyond my abilities. It was that it involved a kind of detail that I'm not interested in, that I have little expertise on, and that I don't really care to pay attention to. And it involves the kind of long-term, circular decision-making that eats away at me, as a task-oriented, linear thinking being. (And that the ratio of wedding planning to marriage preparation is WAY out of whack.)

But as the day comes, and the long-discerned details fall into place, the reality that the most detailed details don't really matter finally does sink in, and you try your best to slow time down to a savorable pace as you drink in everything that is your wedding weekend (as evidenced here and here).

Then you honeymoon, hopefully (we did), and you come back to sink your teeth into day-to-day- married life. And you realize that the small-talk question isn't gone; you're not free of it. It's just a different question now, "How was the wedding? How was your honeymoon?"

Ok, so now we're kind of past that one:

Itwasgoodsogladyoucouldmakeitwehadareallygoodtimeandimgladyoudidtoo.

(But I did revel in how many people were so touched and moved by our Wedding Mass, Sons' Dance, and wedding favor.)

Now we're into a combination of "how's married life?!" and uncomfortable insinuations toward our sex life and whether or not we're pregnant, with too many people insisting that we are or will soon be (only the Lord knows). And my impatient internal monologue has to find a deeper, fuller patience to stop being a jackass and give authentic, quality answers to people. Because they have taken the time to chat with me.

But the point I want to dwell on here is this juncture that Katherine and I are at now. It's been weeks since our honeymoon. I've started a new school year at work, and her new job begins soon. Our apartment is as set up and staged as it's going to be, and we've lived in it together long enough that we've made it our own, in both pretty and sloppy ways.

Basically, the "honeymoon period" is over and "real life" has more than begun. So now the question of "how's married life!?" isn't just a conversational small-talk; it's a self-reflection point, constantly.

So far, so good, we say, while eliciting cynicism and skepticism from prophets of caution and/or doom. Things feel very natural, comfortable, and usual, with the seemingly minor but existentially major difference that it all happens together. I don't have to drive her home at the end of the night or figure out how our late afternoons, evenings, and weekends can align. We just live on the same wavelength 24-7 now.

And we're doing pretty well with it.

Why? How? I don't have a magic solution, but I know what one major factor has been in helping us find a deeply comfortable and loving groove together: resisting cohabitation. Some people resist it until they're engaged; others until leases expire, and it's just logical to move in together. We resisted all the way until the wedding. We moved Katherine into our jointly leased apartment on June 1, subleased our future bedroom, stashed me at my grad school dorm and then a friend's apartment on an air mattress, and we made it to mid-July.

In the past, we had vacations and travel times when we shared hotel rooms; we had weekend nights when we stayed over at each other's place. But we never let it turn into living together - no spare toothbrush, no drawers of clothing, no overnight bags left behind (ok, I let Katherine keep a spare blanket in my drafty apartment). We were insistent that our lives remain distinct while we dated and moved through engagement toward marriage.

There was something about that distinction - something I may not have perspective on for years, or decades, or ever - that drove us to more deeply value the time we spent together. Something about having a crucial part of our unity withheld that challenged us to consider how marriage would be different and potentially better. We embraced a discernment context that challenged us to think and pray over what could be with fuller commitment, with a conclusive decision to love forever.

We got repeatedly frustrated with saying good bye at the end of the night. We got repeatedly frustrated with going days without seeing each other. We got repeatedly frustrated at having to go to bed alone most nights. There was something more that was accessible if we discerned and decided that we could commit to each other on that next level.

And even when we discerned and decided, there was something more to challenge and motivate us as we knew it was coming, and coming soon. There was an expiration date on the frustrations, and it wasn't because we relented and wanted an out. It was because we knew we really wanted the constancy of contact and support, the indefinite unity, and the uninterrupted intimacy that we could give each other in a marital commitment of love.

I'm not saying you can't have that in a serious committed relationship. I'm not saying you can't experience a semblance of that in a cohabitation situation. What I am saying is that you more deeply appreciate the time spent together, more deliberately undertake the work it takes to communicate and be on the same page, and more dynamically cultivate the longing and desire of knowing you can and will love the other person more when you commit to the relationship that holds nothing back.

I don't know how strong our "honeymoon effect" has been. I don't know what of our day-to-day life is doomed to fade or what of it will deteriorate into new frustrations. What I do know is that we have a deep-seated appreciation for spending every day and night together, for what it's like to have distinct and personal lives of our own, and what it's like when we work to share all of that together.

Even when the last vestiges of "honeymoon effect" wear away, we will retain our foundation of appreciation and value for the lives we each have and the ways we strive to sustain them separately and shared. I'm grateful that our faith challenges us to learn and live out ideals, and I love that we can now experience the fruits of challenging but worthwhile self-denial.

And here's to the great roommates I've had in my life, and to never having to look for a roommate again.