First Anniversary and Dinner

This week, one year ago, held so much newness. Our wedding, saying goodbye to family and moving to South Korea. Back then it never occurred to me that we would be settled into Louisville, Kentucky in less than twelve month's time. It feels strange.

This weekend we will celebrate - maybe go to a nice restaurant or visit Mammoth Caves? We don't have a plan yet, but we have already bought ourselves an anniversary gift - a nespresso machine.

Maybe it's odd, but buying an espresso machine is something we've talked about even when we were dating. We dreamed of that day when we would have a place of our own and could enjoy drinking lattes and americanos together at home. So buying it for our anniversary made sense and felt a little like a rite of passage for us.

This machine is a convenient (lazy) way to create the coffee shop environment at home. It is special because it combines the ease of a pod machine (like a Keurig) with a 19 bar high-pressure pump which means that with just the press of a button, you get cafe quality espresso. The machine itself is also incredibly small, taking up only a sliver of the counter top.

So now weekend mornings can be transformed into our own private cafe. It is a funny and satisfying feeling to sip a delicious cappuccino that did not cost $4 on our cozy couch. I can't wait to have coffee-loving guests over and serve them too.

(My sister might flip if she saw the picture below..how I handed a cup to Isaac over the back of the lovely white couch she gave us.)

Besides showing off our new fangled coffee gadget, I wanted to share a little bit about what I've begun to learn in our first year of marriage. Maybe a one year anniversary is a small accomplishment in terms of the rest of our lives, but it's still a first for us and feels noteworthy.

Learning something and experiencing something can happen simultaneously, but often it seems like they are two separate actions, parts or layers of the same whole. I've heard before that each person carries within them unspoken and unrealized expectations. From our past experiences, certain things register as "normal" within us and these presumptions affect how we interact with other people.

Over the past year, I have seen some of my inner patterns for what marriage and family should be like come to the surface. Unknowingly, I relate to Isaac in accordance with these hidden codes, and expect him to respond as if he has the same collection within him. Well he doesn't. And together we are learning to expose such unspoken expectations, fuse ours together and compose our very own formulas.

Maybe I'm making this sound too abstract. It fleshes itself out in the smallest of things. Like dinner.

As a new wife and homemaker, preparing dinner has caused a few ruffles between Isaac and me. In my single life, I considered myself a decent cook - for myself at least. But since Isaac has different food preferences than me, learning to cook dinner for him is a bit of a process.

Here is what happens at dinnertime. Shortly after Isaac returns from work, I ask him "So, what do you feel like eating for dinner?" Usually I'll followup with a few different options, recipes that I know our pantry and refrigerator are well-stocked for. He responds coolly, saying some variant of "That's fine."

It sounds placid enough, but in reality neither of us was satisfied with this simple exchange. A recent conversation helped us to finally figure out that the disharmony is caused by our varying presumptions of what dinnertime is like.

The Moak home has a dinnertime prelude. It involves my mom asking dad (usually calling out the back door) what he would like for dinner. He usually responds by asking what's on the menu, and then she tosses out a few options. He picks one and then anticipates his choice for the next 30-60 minutes while my mom makes it.

This lovely dinnertime duet is what I unknowingly have been expecting to play out between Isaac and myself. And so Isaac's easy-going response of "That's fine" seemed a bit unsatisfactory to me. I wanted him to get excited about the dinner options and anticipate the eating, just like my dad does. I would ask him repeatedly "What do you feel like eating?" I just wanted to make something that would bring him happiness and pleasure, the excitement of eating I saw my dad express the moment he came inside and saw his plate waiting.

Isaac, meanwhile, told me that he was not used to being picky, but just eating the dinner his aunt had prepared for him. His response seemed so short and simple, but I have experienced firsthand what dinner with his aunt is like. It involves a wide array of entrees and side dishes, a scrumptious and seamless blend of American and Korean cuisine worthy of some hip restaurant. Fulfilling that inner expectation of what feels normal to him sadly is not something I am prepared to do anytime soon.

So he did not get why I did not simply have everything prepared when he came home. Why did I wait and ask him and only then start cooking? It seemed so inefficient, and gave him the unnecessary burden of choosing. What if he chose something that I don't like eating?

I never knew "What would you like for dinner?" could be interpreted in such different ways. To me it was a question to build excitement. But to Isaac it brought worry and frustration.

Discovering this discrepancy felt so fulfilling. It's only our first year, and no matter how much we have talked and continue to talk about what we consider fundamentals, I'm sure more unknown differences like dinner will pop up. I feel thankful to be with Isaac, someone so willing to be with me and uncover such roots together, and then have a laugh about it all.

(Our first dinner as husband and wife. We were so stiff and nervous. Still we joke about how the few morsels we tasted of that dinner were so delicious, if only we could have enjoyed it and eaten more.)