Marriage Monster

So I'm, like, married and stuff.

"Um, yeah, Jean, we pretty much got that from all the wedding pictures and the endless squee," you might be muttering, but for me, this really only began to sink in yesterday.

Yesterday was our first real day of married life. Back from the honeymoon, no more plans or preparations, no distractions, the euphoria wearing off, just him, me and the pets and nothing to do but settle back into real life. Sure, we shared a roof for months before the wedding, but now, looking around at our stuff, realizing that it's really OUR stuff and not simply HIS stuff and MY stuff vying for space... knowing he's there and he's never going to leave unless I leave with him... negotiating our way around each other's moods, understanding that we'll have to do that for the rest of our lives and so we might as well get good at it... this is reality. We got through the wedding. We're past the honeymoon. Now we have a marriage to take care of.

The weight of it is suddenly palpable, where before it seemed light, unreal. It's almost like we've brought home this entity, this shared thing between us that we're both responsible for, that we have to nurture and nourish and handle with care. It's something that we love and want to care for, but know that neither of us really know how, and we can only learn by doing, and trying our best, and fear that if we don't each give it a hundred percent, if we mess it up, it will turn on us, become a monster of misery and failure. It's a scary thing.

But--and this is where I turn mushy and cliché--just when it starts to feel too heavy, too scary, when I start to wonder what the hell we've gotten ourselves into, he grabs my hand. Or he grins at me, this stupid, adorable, adoring grin. Or he pulls me close for a snuggle, or a snog, and he makes me laugh, and he makes me feel safe, and warm, and beautiful, and loved. That's when I know that we can do this. That it's totally worth it. That we both knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into, and that we're both as patient with each other as we are neurotic, and thank GOD that we each found someone who is capable of putting up with our crap. That I have a partner who cherishes me as much as I cherish him, even when we're both crabby and worn out and snippy and can't agree on anything.

"So this is what it is to be married." I thought this a lot yesterday. Sometimes it was with a sense of giddy wonder. Sometimes it was with a sense of unease. But at the end of the day, snuggled next to my husband in our bed, my body fitted against his just so, my head nesting perfectly in the dip where his shoulder ends and his chest begins... it was with utter contentment.

Until the cat started wailing to be let in. Continuously. All. Night. Long.

So much for contentment. So much for sleep. Stupid cat.

Eventually we got over our shared irritation and managed to find the humor in it. Then we came up with a strategy to shut her up long enough for us to doze for precious minutes at a time. This mainly involved taking turns getting up, opening the door and squirting her with water whenever she'd start up again. Team work. Go team us!

So this is what it is to be married. It's not so scary, really. This, we can do.