After The Honeymoon...Now what?!?!

It's been the best 6-9 months of complete unadulterated bliss. You've laughed, smiled, celebrated and proclaimed out loud that "Nothing has ever felt like this before". You are in love. 
You are in the honeymoon phase and everything is amazing you love everything about your "booski", you love they way they look when they wake up, when they sleep, you kiss them with morning breath, you love all the perfections and imperfections of what you believe is the perfect match for you. Damn this feels good.

Now we are at the 7+ month mark... The honeymoon is officially over, now what? 
When your a kid you do that cheer: "Raven & Stan sitting in the tree KISSING first comes love, then comes marriage then comes Raven with a baby carriage." How come they never said what came after that? When the real people surface. That cheer should have ended with a to be continued. 

Does this stage mean you don't love this person anymore? No! It simply means that the infantile stage of the relationship is maturing. Simply speaking it means all the baby talk and lovey dovey aspects of the relationship move to the side ever so slightly and real life takes place. 
Suddenly the fact that she sleeps with her mouth open and he snores like a warthog with allergies is no longer cute and adorable. 
Now real life is taking place and he/she does a few things that annoy you.

You've had your first argument and one of the 2 of you was devastated if not both. You thought it was over, you couldn't believe the person who was/is so perfect is arguing with you about something so small and petty.
A few months back, anything petty was quickly something to laugh about and no one caught serious feelings. Now the person that makes your heart rate triple in beats at the sight of them is on the other end of the phone in a full blown "heated discussion" because he'd rather watch Monday night football than sit on the phone with you for 3 hours discussing your day and why your cat Skittles is jumping in the clothes hamper again. Something so small and so trivial is the tell tale sign that, real life has entered the picture and it's not leaving. 
Yes this is still the same person you are in love with and no the love or the amount of love you have for this person has not decreased... The honeymoon is over... NOW WHAT? 


I've compiled a small list of things that I think help post honeymoon:

• Communication~ Early on in the relationship no one is really talking about what makes you tick and what grinds your gears. Your more so discussing how much you love each other, how happy you are, how you can't live without one another etc. There comes a very critical time in that relationship where you each need to have a talk revolving around the more intimate details of your personalities. This could very well assist in those future argument/heated discussions it may even stop some before they happen
•  "Me Time" ~ When I was younger and less mature I had no idea how much a person needed Me Time. I'll be the first to admit there was a time (years ago) that I was the typical chick wondering why we couldn't spend every waking moment together basking in each others aura and the love we share. The older I got the better understanding I received of just how important Me Time really is. If you suffocate your partner you suffocate your relationship and it suffers. Lots of people tend to do this early on. You spend so much time together face to face or over the phone you run out of things to talk about, surprises to give, information to share nothing is new because you gave it all away in the first few months, this is when things get stale and stagnant. It's like a kid on Christmas you have this great build up to all the wrapped presents under the tree after 15 minutes you've opened them all the novelty has worn off after 2 hours and now it's just another day. We often do the same in relationships. You have to save some things so that down the line there is still something to keep it funky fresh.

• ~The Same Things You Did To Get Them, Do To Keep Them~ How self explanatory is that one? We often forget all the things we did to get the person we constantly say we are so happy to have. After you've done these things for a few months its easy to comfortable and kind of fall off. You used to wash his clothes, fix his plate, get him a beer for the game, always get dressed up. You used to give her flowers, cards and phone calls for no reason just to say you love her, surprise her with dinners, chick flicks etc. Somewhere along the lines everyone got comfortable now it's been months since she's received flowers and months since you've had a home cooked meal. You can't forget how these things used to make the other person feel, the smile it brought to their face and the joy it brought you to see them happy. Don't start anything you aren't willing to continue but at this stage you've started it so get to the florist and get in the kitchen...  

 These are a just few things in my opinion that I've noticed... feel free to add . 

~Smooches
<3 RandomRedz

First

First

At 26 I have recently discovered that I have experienced more first now than I have in the past and the first’s of years past pale in comparison to the first of my current days.

It’s funny between the ages of 16-18 the first’s that seemed so important and groundbreaking at 26 you realize just how silly and minute they were. To name a few:

• The first time you have sex (I guess this depends on the people I’ll dig deeper)
• Your first drink
• The first time you tell someone you love them and vice versa

That’s just to name a few.

As I approach 27 I realize how they have changed and what some really mean allow me to elaborate.

The First Time You Have Sex:

While yes this is a very significant and important milestone again I must reiterate it depends on the person. When I was in middle school I remember hearing stories of people having sex for the first time I wonder if 17 years later that first time still matters to some of those people. Now at 26 I look at the situation completely different.

What about the first time you make love (have sex) with the person you love, really love, not the infatuated, teenage, puppy dog love but really love, I have to be honest when I review the situations, yes the loss of virginity was an exciting and (at the time) groundbreaking experience it pales in comparison. I’d make love to the love of my life a million times yet I’m ok with losing my virginity only once (it was nothing like the movies) I’m Just Sayin’.

However nothing compares to the first time you make love to that person “the one”, nothing in all the books you’ve read, movies you’ve seen or songs you’ve heard prepare you for the moment that you and that one allow your bodies to become one. I think the more mature you are the better understanding of the beauty that it beholds you understand. Every nerve in your body is on edge, your hearts beat, matches your minds pace which matches the euphoric sensation your body is experiencing, they all become one. Nothing like the teens and/or young adults fiddling around with another exploring what late night movies on Cinemax and HBO have taught them, mimicking what they saw but having no idea what the purpose of any of it is.

I said that all to say I truly believe you can (not me lol) can have sex with as many people as you want but the moment you make love it changes the game for life, you can be 25 or 50 and experience this for the first time. I am quickly learning very few things have age limits

The First Time You Have a Drink:

 If you are or were anything like me you had your first drink before 21. The first time I had anything to drink, I was in my sisters mother’s closet and she had a bottle of wine, we took a few sips and nothing happened, when I was 17 I had my first real drink, I went to a party and being the novice and naive teen that I was I drank Everclear, yes ladies and gents Everclear which is 151 and 190-proof. I am beyond thankful that I do not have hair on my chest, face or any other ungodly place on my body after consuming that shyt!

I find myself now contemplating the first time I was of age and indulged in a cranberry and Vodka (my drink of choice), or a glass of wine. My alcohol tolerance had greatly improved and the sting of alcohol no longer made me feel like my chest was on fire. I was able to relax and enjoy the drink, it was relaxing and enjoyable (when consumed in large amounts in hilarious the actions that followed as well as the actions of others lol). It was also exhilarating as this was perfectly legal and OK for me to do, I wasn’t sneaking, I wasn’t afraid of who could smell it on me, if I looked drunk  or what lie I needed to concoct if I got caught. It was a freedom to experience and explore freely.

The First Time “I Love You” Is Said.

OK here we go the meat and potatoes and the total inspiration for this blog.

I know about the age of 15 I told someone I loved them, guess what I have no effin idea where he is, what he’s doing or anything and even worse guess what I don’t care.

Of course there are some you remember but do I remember the first boy I told? No!

Sorry, I could say 15 is the first time I said it but I vaguely remember telling someone in middle school (he was my first BOYFRIEND LMAO) or at least that’s what I thought we were doing. We went to classes together on A days and B days and when I stayed at my BFF’s I rode his bus. We hugged and passed dumb little letters all day and snuck on the phone before my grandmother got home from work. There it was… Some love, some boyfriend.

I’ll tell you how grand that love was, once I couldn’t talk to him because my grandmother was home (I wasn’t supposed to talk to boys yet) he got mad and told me if I didn’t stay on the phone he was gonna call my house and talk to my grandmother (in hindsight ole boy had some issues) the next day I broke up with him. Oh so in love.

In high school I really thought that I really knew what love really was. Even then I didn’t oddly enough. In my early 20’s I thought I knew. I knew what I wanted love to be and what I thought it should be, I even knew how I thought it was supposed to work. Hell I believed it conquered all.

Well I grew up and woke up all at the same time. What I thought was the end all be all to all the puppy love heartbreaks I’d experienced was anything but; in fact it was the eye opener necessary to make me grow up!

Here I am 26 and finally I am honestly in love the right way for the first time. I heard someone tell me they love me and for the first time in all my life it was a feeling unlike any other, when he said it my world literally froze, I didn’t think I heard him correctly but even now that he tells me every day I can still hear the way his voice sounded the first time he said it, the tone, the timbre, the pattern, the bass, the baritone, the certainty, the sincerity, the passion and every emotion. I hear it like no other time, it sticks with me day in and day out and no matter how many times he tells me, that is one of 3 times that he has said it that I will never forget.

He inspired this blog because today he told me to listen to a song and when listening to the lyrics I cried. Nope that wasn’t the first time that happened and probably will not be the last, but when the tears fell I also had a smile on my face. He is the first man to ever make me cry for a good reason in my entire life.

I began to ponder all my first and all my first with him. Every first that I’ve experienced with him thus far outweighs every first that I’ve experienced with any man before him. Yes at their time in my past they were special and meant something to me at that time. But none of them compare to what I see in my life every day these days.

 I had this strange and ridiculous notion a few years back that love might actually hurt and might actually include many fights and arguments. When I left the situation that birthed those conceptions I realized how sadly misguided I was.

I was slightly saddened and disappointed at the revelation that a few months from 27 I am experiencing a real relationship for the first time. Does this speak negatively on my behalf or on me as a woman, at first thought, I believed so but I soon realized it does not. In fact it speaks to the personal growth and development of me as a woman and a person. I’ve grown enough to embrace change and acknowledge that what I always believed was “it” could easily not be, it’s a revelation that we will always have first’s and new chapters in life that will make past chapters and past first appear as unread books and last’s of practice rounds, simply put nothing like the real thing. While writing this blog I discovered not only am I experiencing some new first’s I realized you don’t actually have a “first” until you have the real thing.