week 22: saying goodbyes.

our four years in sweet home birmy have come to a close.  it's been an incredible four years of ups & downs & beginnings & endings.  blakey learned how to be an excellent physician.  i learned how to be a pasty chef & actually love my job.  we learned how to live in a city we knew nothing about.  we learned to make friends, truly amazing lifelong friends.  & we even learned how to be husband & wife.

the biggest life lessons i learned while in birmingham:

1. be selfish with your marriage.  learn to put your spouse & your marriage first before all of the other things that are in your life - work, friends, even other family.  it might sound rude, but it's so important to start there & learn to live out your life together.  i will point out a very wise thing my father-in-law said to me before blake & i got married: when marrying a doctor, you have to be ok with coming in second.  you are always his first priority, but you are going to come in second sometimes.  this is also a good thing to remember.

2. find an amazing group of married friends with similar beliefs about marriage.  i cannot tell you how lucky & blessed we were to find these amazing friends.  not only because they are each awesome but because we all understood how important our spouses were to each other.  it made it even easier to put our marriages first.

3. marriage is a choice.  a wise friend of ours once told me that the key to a good marriage is to wake up each day & choose your spouse.  sometimes it's easy & sometimes it's hard.  but it's always a choice.

4. even if you love your job, it's ok to love home more.  i always wanted a job that i looked forward to going to on monday mornings.  after having my dream job for the last three years, if you asked me if i'd rather be at work or at home, i'd choose home every time.  & you know what, that's ok.

5. please don't ever say "i don't have time" or "i don't have a choice".  you have time.  you get to choose how to spend your time.  & you have a choice.  just because you don't like your options, it doesn't mean you don't have a choice.  

four years ago, i never would've dreamed it would be so hard to leave birmingham.  this city with its beautiful trees & hills, its cool summer nights, its amazing food, its southern hospitality, & its incredible people.  birmy, you've been good to us.  

& because you know i couldn't leave this city we love without having a "final meal" {& telling you about it} - our last meal was at saw's.  a pulled pork baker with lots of delicious saw's sauce & the best fried okra there is.  technically, we ate our "final" saw's meal at least six or seven times, including twice in the last week. each one was absolutely incredible.

"you get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place.  

like you'll not only miss the people you love 

but you'll miss the person you are now 

at this time & place 

because you'll never be this way ever again."

love love,

kjp.