Haikus: Sunday in Fall at Home

windows are open

air conditioner is off

comfortable temp

football game is on
leftover pizza for lunch
sonic happy hour...?

halloween decor
fake spiderwebs and pumpkins

smells like pumpkins, too

yoga pants, tank top
no makeup and no worries
he's in comfy shorts

might take a lil nap
yawning through the afternoon
sundays are too short

It's Coronation Day! Except It's Medical School

This was 8:02 a.m. on match day in February when we found out that RG got into med school at UTMB. It was an awesome day. All day I just kept saying, "It's over!!!" because I was so stoked I would never have to think about the MCAT again. In retrospect, LOL. It's only just begun or whatever.

All those days in winter of 2011 where RG was driving from San Marcos to Austin for MCAT prep from 9-12, then back to San Marcos to work, and then back to Austin for MCAT prep from 6-9, then back to San Marcos to study... and deal with a needy girlfriend texting passive aggressively and demanding attention and pouting (spoilet alert: that was me & I was the worst)... and then wake up and do the whole thing over again for 4 weeks straight... those days sucked so much. I have too many bitter and angry thoughts about the way the med school application process is structured. Honestly, it's just a rude system and emotionally & mentally abusive #IMHO, but that's another story for another day. This morning I'm just celebrating how long gone those days of acceptance uncertainty are and how grateful I am for the opportunity that Ryan was given and the awesome place that it brought us to now. I keep saying that we couldn't have planned this outcome or this timing any better than it worked out, and it's true. UTMB! OMG! It's real life. It's kind of hard to believe that today, RG started medical school. #isthisreallife

Since seeing Frozen in February, whenever a really good day arrives I just feel like Princess Anna on Coronation Day. She wakes up, looks like a hot mess, and then realizes what day it is and just explodes with joy and bursts into song. Today was Coro-freaking-nation Day in the Gates home. I went to bed at 4 a.m. (#oops #crafts #netflix) but woke up at 6:45 like a mad woman. I look so bad right now, to channel my inner Princess Anna hot mess mode, of course, but making RG breakfast this morning was my own rendition of "For The First Time In Forever" with a little less dancing and a little more coffee. It's Coronation Day! It's the day that RG has been dreaming of his whole life and the day that I've been dreaming of since his dreams became mine, too.

I feel really lucky that I had a sweet friend to go through the SOMSWP with. What is SOMSWP? It's the Significant Other Med School Waiting Process. I made it up 5 seconds ago. It's the process that a significant other goes through after they say to their med school applicant beau, "Where you go, I will go! Where you stay, I will stay! Your dreams are my dreams!" That sweeping declaration of support basically guarantees two things: 1) that said significant other is supportive and awesome & 2) that said significant other may cry a lot off and on for a few months and have to develop super-patience and super-trust and super-flexibility. It was the luckiest thing to have someone who experienced a similar situation that I could vent to and share the frustrations with. Both our guys got in and everything rocks now, but it kinda sucks to love a really awesome and brilliant and compassionate guy and have to sit idly by for weeks and months while schools don't recognize his awesomeness. Fortunately, schools came to their senses and now my fellow SOMSWP veteran, Iliana, and I are significant others of two very handsome and promising future physicians. I still remember exactly where RG and I were walking in front of my hospital when I saw on Facebook that our friend Logan (Iliana's future doctor boo) was accepted. Felt so relieved and happy for Logan and for Iliana... it was all over/just beginning! It's crazy how one little email can just change everything. I'll never forget our match day moment or that huge exhale after the good news sinks in and settles. Thank God it's behind us and RG's dreams are before us. That SOMSWP, though... it's an emotional rollercoaster There really should be a support group. If you're in the SOMSWP, my advice to you is to hang in there, Joan.

hang in there, Joan!

So now I begin day one of my week off between my internship ending and my job beginning. Today I will be grateful for the opportunities we've been given, the time we've had to just chill together this summer before RG started school, that we ended up in Galveston, and the chance to have a self-care week before becoming officially official at my job.

Proud of you, student doctor RG! xo

"How's Married Life?"

I have sounded like a broken record the past few weeks. Seeing old friends, meeting new ones, and catching up with family, the same question comes up: so how's married life?! I have asked that question so many times to my newlywed friends in quick conversations, but never expecting an honest or heartfelt answer. It's such a small-talk question. As someone who has been married for 4 months, I hate answering it. Am I wrong for that? Maybe. I appreciate the thought behind the question but I hate coming up with a quick conversation-satisfying answer.

My general responses to the how's married life question has been a combination of the following:

• great
• so awesome
• it's like being engaged except we live together and don't live with anyone else
• it's like having a sleepover with your best friend every day
• so fun

While all those things are very true, a more thorough answer might sound something like this:

After being married for 4 months, married life is everything I'd hoped it would be. It is joyful, exciting, and challenging (how do we merge our USAA accounts?!). The way I feel when I think about how this is actually reality and I am married to RG is like when you've had a really long day and you're sore and tired and then you get home and throw yourself onto the couch and take off your shoes and let out a big exhale and then you find out that you're having something really delicious for dinner... and it's already prepared so you don't have to cook! When that comfortable feeling of home can be found with a person- it's just great. Being married to RG is so comfortable, chill, and relaxed (keep in mind, med school hasn't started yet #calmbeforethestorm). I loved Ryan 3 years ago when we started dating and while we were engaged and I love him now that we share a name and a home. 

Thinking about what "married life" has been for us reminds me of this story that I've seen on FB and email forwards. There are a bunch of rocks in a jar and people say, "yeah, it's full." Then someone pours in a bunch of sand and everyone's like, "oh... guess it's full now, but it wasn't before." Then someone pours water in and everyone's like, "OH, okay now it's full."

That's how it is with RG and how our relationship has changed since getting married. Imagine that I have a love jar - I think I love him all I can, and then he does the dishes when I've had a long day. Then I think I really love him all I can, and he asks me how my day was and really listens to every detail, showing me that I was wrong and I can love him even more. It's fun to be wrong in this situation. So basically, married life is what it is because I've got a great partner. Married life is as good as the partner is, in my novice opinion.

I'll probably continue to answer the how's married life? question with "great!" and "awesome!" and my typical responses for the sake of time and small talk, but the past 4 months have taught me a lot about RG and about what our future might look like and I'm so excited to one day look back at this post after having gained years and years of marital wisdom and think about how young we were and how little we understood...and probably think that it was pretty funny that I thought my love jar was pretty full after 4 months.

Here's to another 4,000 months, RG. Married life is what it is because of your kind heart, respectful nature, and excellence with a crock pot. So glad that our fights are dumb and our rebound rate from frustration is top notch. XO

RG is 23!

July 31 is the day that RG was born. If it weren't for him, who else would I coerce into spontaneous photo shoots in the corner of our living room that gets really awesome light? Who else would love me even when I wear really unflattering pants? Not sure. 

A Birthday Poem for my Bae, RG

There may not be a popular song about turning 23,

but here’s a little poem about my husband, RG.

If I’m ever watching Netflix, he’s probably nearby,

unless I’m watching “House of Cards.” He doesn’t like it (don’t know why).

He wears v-neck t-shirts and will soon wear a white coat.

When he does beat me at Scrabble (rare), it’s certain that he’ll gloat.

He’s handy and he’s brilliant and, quite frankly, he is hot.

A manly man, yet uses Pinterest! A genius with a crock pot.

Everyday he makes me laugh and every night he makes me dinner.

He’s eating healthy, working out, and looking toned and thinner!

Don’t know what I did to deserve to end up with the kind of guy

whose listening skills are top notch and who can handle when I cry.

He has a heart for people and recently whales, too.

He’s sweetest when I see him sweetly holding his niece, lil Roo.

My husband, Ruby’s uncle, a friend, a son, and brother,

a future doctor whose future children I’ll be the future mother.

We’ve spent the last year transitioning from place to place and role to role,

now that we are settled in and comfy, my heart feels so very full.

So happy with you, happy at home, you make me happy in every way.

Hope you have some happy on your 23^rd birthday!

XO

Settled

We've been married for almost 3 months now and I can't believe how settled we are into our new home, new routine, and new roles.

Our home feels like home. We've decorated, RG has the whole place wired and hooked up to be controlled by his devices, and it smells like Anthropologie, sometimes (shoutout to our Capri Blue candle a sweet friend gave us). Ryan has given me creative license to make and paint and decorate and I have given him the power to organize however his heart desires. One of the things I was most excited about when we found our apartment was having a place we could share with friends, which we did this summer with all of our new friends and our friends who came to visit us!
 

Our new routine is comfortable. I go to work at 8:00 and I'm home at 4:35. The first half of the summer, RG had a med-school-thing with UTMB so he was up at 9:00 and in class or lab for a few hours each day right across the street from my hospital. Best part of the med-school-thing? Our new friends! Happy hours, Spurs playoffs, game nights, and power hours... is this what the next 4 years will look like? Maybe not, but even with a few years of intense studying and hard work, it's comforting to know that RG has some great friends in his classes to go through it with - and I'm so grateful that they accepted me as part of the gang for the summer.

Our new roles are probably going to change again very soon. I am an intern all day while RG is the launderer, exerciser, unpacker of those last few pesky boxes that we are trying to avoid, and enjoyer of the last bits of freedom he has before school starts up. When I get home, I am the napper and RG is the cook. I am the eater, he is the dishwasher, and we are the watchers of Netflix (lately It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Those are our roles Monday through Friday. The weekends are wildcards. Come September, I will *hopefully* be an employee, a licensed social worker, and a suga mama while RG is the student, the hermit, and the scrubs-wearer. The latter might be my favorite of his upcoming role transition ;)

Now I'm off to make us some coasters while Ryan searches for new recipes so we can start being "meal planners" and stop being macaroni-n-cheese-out-of-the-box eaters.

Wedding: Our Worlds Collided

The wedding came and went and it was our favorite weekend ever. I have a lot of things to say about the wedding; there may be a few separate posts on it. Writing about the wedding is hard to do without just turning into a list of shout-outs because of all the wonderful people that helped us out with all the little jobs that wedding weekends require, but I'll save that for the thank-you notes. What I hope to remember about the wedding weekend are the people who came, the fun that Ryan and I had, and how unbelievably happy it was. The first made the second and third possible.

One picture that I think does a great job of capturing what made the wedding so special:

This picture is awesome because I can't think of any other time that I would have my friends Caitlin & Kendall and Claudia's mom, Debbie, in the same picture. I found this photo a few days after the wedding and laughed pretty hard - how crazy that all the different "worlds" of friends that Ryan and I have collided on our special day. The dance floor was filled with cousins and friends and moms and siblings -- all our worlds collided and it was awesome.