Marriage

It often strikes me that I got married, married, and kind of just glossed over it in this space, as if everyone meets an amazing person and makes a life changing decision every day, and me?  Well, I just joined the crowd.  But really, it was so much more than that - so much more.  

Our one year anniversary was almost a month ago and I really thought I'd sit down then, finish my thank you cards, write out this post, declare some kind of sappy, undying love for my newish husband to the internet, but instead, life went on full steam ahead and only about half of that happened.  I was putting together a slide show of images from a day last week when it really hit me just how much better my life has been since meeting Andrew.  I don't mean that it was dreadful before - far from it, but there is definitely something to be said for sharing, both the good and bad.  

In the morning when Andrew leaves for work he places a mug and a carafe of coffee on my bedside table.  He whispers sweet words into the dark and he leaves for his first job of the day and he never complains.  He comes home and showers and rests and eats and leaves again and never complains.  I thought about telling you how lovely our wedding day was, about the water and the breeze, friends and family lining the slope to the dock, tables of the food I worked hard on and believed in, tiny white twinkling lights against the night's darkened trees.  I thought that all those things might be the best way to tell you how amazing this marriage has been, but I was wrong, because although that night was absolutely perfect, the most beautiful moments in my marriage so far have been at 2 am when a very tired, worn husband crawls into bed from his last job of the day and instead of lamenting those hours, this life, puts his arms around me, curls in tight, and tells me he loves me.  

It feels good to build a life with someone that you like as much as you love.  I like to say that marriage is like a sleepover where you play Uno late at night and laugh about silly stories from the day.  I don't mean to say that there aren't hard times and budgeting and moments of stress induced bickering, but the balance we've struck is one that privileges popcorn and cards in bed as much as the ironing out of who we think each other should be.  I am constantly in awe of who Andrew is, how this guy I barely knew turned into the person I know the best - the person who knows me the best.  

Tonight I'm packing his lunch for work tomorrow, and tomorrow night he'll get off work and we'll have those hours to ourselves, a hole in the work schedule that will be welcomed by a collaborative dinner effort (I cook, he cleans) and most likely a movie interrupted by all the things we didn't get a chance to say over the weekend.  

I think what I'm trying to say is that when people ask me why I decided to get married, the answer seems so simple and so obvious, and really, so undeterred by my own liberal tendencies: a really amazing guy asked me and I said yes.  Yes can be a really great word.