Diary of a Marriage: All Good Things Must Come to an End.
Almost exactly three years ago I waltzed into the office of my colleague, Carrie, who also happens to be a dear friend. (And the editor of Philadelphia Wedding.) We worked together before I knew J., and she was there when I got the breathless phone call from my mother all those years ago: “Honey, I just met your future mother-in-law in the deli line at the grocery store. I gave her your email address—you remember her son, don’t you?” A few weeks later, Carrie heard all about our first date; a year or so later, she squealed appropriately when I came in one Monday morning wearing an engagement ring. {Ed. Note: Nothing about my endurance of your wedding planning??}
“I feel like people spend so much time planning the wedding,” I had told her, “that they forget there’s actually a life afterwards.” I pitched the blog—a sort of behind-the-scenes look at what really goes on in a marriage—and she agreed to it immediately. Diary of a Marriage was born, and now, over 200 posts later, it’s become a log of the first years of our life together.
Along the way, I’ve learned a few things. Writing about your marriage every week calls for heaps of reflection. It’s interesting how much different things look when you write them down. Like:
- How it looks when it’s the day before your five-year wedding anniversary and you have nothing to give your husband. (Note: Still haven’t finished that Major Secret Anniversary Art Project. I’m thinking it’ll make an awesome Christmas present.)
- How it looks when you admit that you’re one step away from scheduling sex in your daily planner.
- How it looks when you purposely explode stuff in the microwave just to get revenge on your husband.
- How it looks when you put down in writing that you openly gawked at a hot guy. In front of your husband.
I had my freakouts. About many things. Including:
- Having kids.
- J. dying.
- Everything having to do with the kitchen.
- Changing my name.
- Buying a “family car.” (We didn’t.)
- That we’ll run out of things to talk about.
We had our bumps in the road, but they were mostly, thankfully, small.
- F*#%ing cancer.
- That time J. grew mutton chops.
- My shopping habits.
But we climbed over the bumps, even the ones that felt like mountains, and we made it back to steady ground.
- We made new couple friends. (Yep, they still talk to us.)
- He learned to appreciate my style. (Even the caftans.)
- We reclaimed the butterflies.
- And even after a few years, J. still lets me tuck my cold toes in the crook of his knees.
I suppose I should have some grand takeaway from three years of thinking, writing, and reflecting on my marriage, but it really all just comes down to this: Marriage is tough. But it’s also wonderful. Hilarious. Aggravating. Humbling. Comforting. Surprising. It’s a crazy ride, and a million words float around it and they all say the same thing: Keep going, keep going, even if one of you wants to get off—and one of you probably will, if only for a flashing moment—keep going.
Maybe someday our grandkids will find these posts, all printed out in a dusty stack somewhere and they’ll ask us about them—“Blogs? What were blogs?” they’ll say. And we’ll have the stories from our first almost-decade together, when we had Jenga displays of trash in our kitchen and holes in the ceiling and a fake Christmas tree that topped off at about fourteen inches. I’m sure we’ll look back at it all—even the hole in the ceiling—and think: Yes. That was the best time. All of that. And we’ll be right: Because it is.
Oh, and Justin, I love you.
Hey, you can still keep up with me! I’ll be just over on Philly Mag’s new shopping and style blog, Shoppist. Catch up with me daily at phillymag.com/shoppist.
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