I did the thing I promised myself I would never do.

I did the thing I promised myself I would never do. I promised myself that someday when I got married, I wouldn't neglect my old life - I would keep blogging, I would stay in touch with friends and family. I would work. Basically, I would just be myself, except with another person.

When my friends were getting married and falling off the face of the planet, I didn't understand. I thought it was about them being so in love that they just didn't think anything else was as important. At the time, I turned my nose up at them. To be honest, I thought they were overly-emotional ninnies.

But I think I now understand their predicaments. After you get married, things change - there's so much more complex emotional states that need to be analyzed and sorted through. There is a lot of personal adjustment and reflection that happens. And well, there are in-laws.

The person you're with will make you re-examine your own life and habits - compare and contrast them to your own, worry about new things you had never thought of before. And it's a lot to handle on a psychological level. So I get it now - I get why people struggle to maintain their old lives when they get married. It's emotionally taxing.

Granted, the fact that I'm in Egypt makes it significantly harder to maintain my old life (well, actually it makes it impossible). But I'm still a little bit sad. And that's not because some of the things I was and some of the values that I held are falling to the wayside. No, it's because it's happening without me noticing. But I should notice, and I should care. The last thing that I want to be is a woman who loses herself in marriage simply because she didn't take the time or effort to carve her own niche in the world.

I know it's not easy, but I'm trying.