Specifically, I finally graduated, and now I’m getting ready to embark on a more serious career, which is actually what sparked my interest in firing up WordPress again and putting down my thoughts. (Hi, HR people!) I won’t name names of places I’m applying for now, for various reasons, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at some of the responses I’ve received, and the salary offerings so far — as a journalism major, I thought my life path was pretty well set: do what I love, but be broke as hell doing it. I will say that there are specific areas I’m interested in (Boston, NYC, Seattle), and the most promising responses are out of Boston and NYC so far. No matter what career path I choose, I feel a bit like I’m delaying our dreams of making it to France eventually (which I think I mentioned in my last post), but I’m excited to take my first steps toward a meaningful career, and I think for now the benefits outweigh the negatives.

Last October, Ivona and I were on our honeymoon in Antalya, Turkey, sitting in a faux Parisian café in our resort, and we made the decision to move to France. We busted out the laptop, spent hours looking into everything from the cost of housing in Aix-en-Provence (the city I used to live in) to claiming my French citizenship. We had just had our second wedding in Bulgaria, and our first honeymoon now that we could finally afford one, and it seemed fitting that we made the decision to go there together, something we had talked about as early as our first date. It was a definite motivator to finish up this year and get my degree, and it was one of the things keeping me from shooting myself at the though of another 80-100 hours a week driving a cab this summer, but as we got closer to leaving Northampton to head to the Vineyard, and looked at the costs of going to France, I realized that working another menial labor job for three intense months with no semblance of a life was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. Besides, with the US immigration process being the beast that it is, things will be easier later on for us anyway.

We’re coming up on our two year anniversary, which means that aside from the horrors of just dating me, she’s endured two years of matrimonial unbliss, including my video gaming habit and constant dick jokes (not really — I’m highbrow! No, really). I know everyone says it, but I really can’t believe it has been this long. Luckily for us, we still have the same opinion of marriage that we started out with: our relationship really hasn’t changed because of the rings on our fingers, and we don’t “feel” any more married than when it first happened — which is to say we still think getting married makes more of a difference to everyone around us than it does to us. Hell, we still sometimes feel weird referring to “my wife,” or “my husband.”

Anyway, sorry to make such a rambling, newsy update with not much substance, but I had to break back into it and I’m sure some family and friends who read this will want to get an update on what’s going on. Hopefully I’ll be back on a more regular update schedule, so keep checking.

One of the things that has sort of bothered me lately, and especially since I got married, is the notion of my own mortality. Personally, I believe when I die, that’s it, nothing left. And yeah, that’s depressing as shit, but it’s what I believe. This never really bothered me so much until I realized I had someone to spend the rest of my life with. The last few days I’ve been thinking about it more than usual; we’ve been able to spend some really good times together lately that have led me to be pretty freaked out about what would happen if I die, or if she died, and which would be worse. On the one hand, if I died, I’d never see or touch or hear her again. But I’d be dead, so I wouldn’t know the difference. On the other, if she died, I’d have to live without her, which is pretty unimagineable right now. If I had to choose which of us would live, it would be a tough choice. I wouldn’t want her to die, obviously, but I know how messed up I’d feel if she died and wouldn’t want to put her in that situation. I guess I can take solace in the fact that I’ll probably never be in that position.

A few years ago, I didn’t even think I was capable of feeling certain emotions, let alone some as strongly as I do with Ivona. I feel now that no matter what happens in life, I have a partner to face everything with. I guess these fears of death or worrying about things is my way of being cautious. Life seems so great and perfect around her that I’m almost psyching myself up for the impending fall. Who knows, we may end up living to 90 and having successful, happy lives, but one of us is going to die first. Maybe Alzheimer’s isn’t such a tragic disease at all… Sure, it’s tragic for those around you, but it probably makes dying a hell of a lot easier if you can’t remember their names or anything about them.

I had a dream the other night, that I was in another country and was kidnapped and tortured. It became clear that I was going to die, and worse than the pain or that knowledge was the feeling that I wouldn’t see Ivona again. Stuff like that freaks me out more than anything I’ve ever thought about or worried about before. I used to have those thoughts about my twin brother, Alex, and still do from time to time, but I’ll admit marriage changes your focus a little bit. (Sorry Alex, you have to share the number one spot for favorite person in my book these days.)

I’m sure it’s just a temporary thing and I’ll stop thinking about it so much soon. Maybe writing about it will help put my mind at ease. I think I just need to tell myself that thinking about it now isn’t going to do any good. I don’t think that thinking about death at 24 is going to do much in the way of preparing me for when the time comes.

Anyway, sorry to be so morbid. Next post will have kittens and rainbows, I promise.

Anyway, since I’ll be going this year in a warmer time of the year, I’m excited to see how different it is. Ivona’s been helping her mother with something for one of her English classes and stumbled upon this great gallery of pictures from Bulgaria, which has me psyched to go back and explore more of the country.

Also, we might be going to Turkey for a honeymoon, since we never got to have one before. It’s supposed to be very cheap for some really nice luxury resorts. After finishing 27 credits this semester, a vacation will be welcome, I’m sure.