Married Life. . .

It’s 9:16 p.m.

I’m sitting in our living room next to a dimly lit lamp.  Across the room, my husband sits in the dark with his phone in hand. . . He’s probably playing Scrabble or pursuing Facebook or Twitter.  American Idol is on the television and we intermittently glance at the screen and comment about how fantastic or terrible a certain group is performing.  (We’re a week behind on American Idol–our DVR is embarrassingly full.)

We are an exciting couple, aren’t we?

If I could go back ten years, to my pre-married self, I ‘m quite certain that this is not how I anticipated we would spend our evenings.  Back then I might have envisioned us sitting at the kitchen table, staring longingly into each others eyes, while we talked about our deep love for each other, the meaning of life, and discussed personal goals and dreams. 

Fast forward ten years and here I am, blogging, watching American Idol, and talking about so-and-so’s status update.  I know, you can hardly stand the excitement, can you? You want to know something, though? I could not be more content. 

I love this married life. . . and I am so thankful for it.

I work with a lot of couples who are about to tie the knot.  I think expectations like I held are quite normal.  I smile when I listen to couples talk about how they won’t get stuck in a rut or fall into the trap of monotony.  The funny thing is, though, is that I see our married life as far from monotonous.  To me, it feels like home. . . and that feels good.

I just read an excerpt from the book, Grown-ups by Cheryl Mercer, that talks of this very thing.  In it she writes. . .

“When I think about marriage, what I long for most, strangely enough, is not an elevated spiritual union with a man; that’s a fantasy not readily envisioned.  What seems wondrous to me instead are the small, shared rituals that bind a man and a woman in familiar intimacy, the borders inside which they make love, choose furniture, plan vacations, quarrel over closet space, share the toothpaste, celebrate Christmas the same way they did last year. . . the private jokes, the friends you share, knowing in advance which of you makes the coffee and which goes for the paper, even the comfortable tedium of hearing his or her favorite story yet again.  To promise to share forever the small–not only the grand–moments of life seem to me profoundly human, more intimate even than making love with someone for the first time.“

I agree with her. Marriage IS profound.

It may not look like fireworks, but I am totally digging the strong, steady flame that builds with each passing year.