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Your wedding day is one single day that takes months, sometimes years to plan. The actual day flies by faster than you can blink an eye or take a sip of champagne. After the wedding day is the honeymoon, ranging from several days to several weeks in some cases – seemingly endless days spent on white sandy beaches with crystal blue water and sailboats in the distance.

And then you wake up to your trusty alarm that never ceases to blare at the crack of dawn. The honeymoon is over and your dainty flip-flops turn into corporate high heels. It’s back to reality and a departure from cloud nine. I don’t know that there is ever a way to fully prepare a new bride for the newlywed experience. Sure, there are moments of pure bliss and romance, but there are also moments where you just want to sit down, grab a tissue and let it all out.

I had a few moments similar to this. Don’t get me wrong. Being a new bride was a wonderful feeling, especially on Saturdays when I found myself perusing the aisles of Bed, Bath and Beyond and shopping at the neighborhood grocery store. I was shopping for my home and I had to add all of my little touches to make it mine, to make it ours.

My husband has always worked long hours, even when we were dating. I have become accustomed to this and I now make do by having time for myself. However, the initial experience of coming home from working all day to an empty house was not a warm and fuzzy feeling. This was hardly what I had imagined. It was a strong dose of reality that from here on out, we had bills to pay and jobs to work, and despite my husband’s love for me, he had to do what was necessary to ensure our well-being. My emotional response to this was crying and feelings of loneliness. I cried more tears in the first several months of married life than I cried on my wedding day and trust me, there were quite a few.

It’s not that I was mad at him or resentful for him leaving me at home but I was quite honestly bored to tears, literally. Up until the wedding, I had something to fill every minute of my free time ranging from picking out floral arrangements to cake tasting. And then it was over. I felt empty and useless. It took some tough advice from my girlfriends and family to get me off my rear end and back into the proactive mode. I began using my free time researching new recipes and trying them out – at times making a complete mess of my kitchen – but I was learning. I took up scrapbooking, finally putting all of our wedding and honeymoon photos into an organized album. I cleaned, sometimes a little too consistently, but it made me feel good. I went through old clothes and kept the ones I had actually worn in the last year and discarded those I hadn’t. I learned that using my time in an efficient and productive manner made me feel as though I was accomplishing something with all of the free time I had on my hands. When I would spend time with husband, it was quality time.

It’s very easy to get into the “New Bride Depression Mode,” but the lesson I learned from mine was to snap out of it and make the best of the newlywed days. We recently celebrated our one year anniversary in March. The first year of marriage flew by just as fast, if not faster, than our wedding day. It was much like a winding road with plenty of twists and surprises complete with the anxiousness of not knowing what was around the next turn. I wouldn’t trade the memories, or tears, for the world.

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