Woman. Legend. Blog. - American cynicism. Russian fatalism. Nutella.

I am writing this post from my deathbed.

Ok, not my deathbed, but I’m definitely sick and in sweatpants. I haven’t been able to sleep the past couple nights, I have crazy congestion, and on top of that, I still have work, work training, night classes, weekend classes, the novel, and trying not to get fat again. Oh, and did I mention we are almost out of fruit in the house and we need to call the plumber to investigate a dubious leak in our basement?

It’s not very glamorous.

Life in general isn’t very glamorous. Marriage is the same. Marriage is not crazy romantic proposals that annoy the crap out of everyone on YouTube. or wedding dresses or roses and chocolate. It’s filled with the ordinary: the going to the grocery store, me sitting here in my sweats and Mr. B showering upstairs, day in and day out, for weeks on end. It’s “what’s for dinner” and “mow the lawn” and “sketchy Russian store ladies. ” Also, sweatpants and the used tissues I leave around the house that I forget to throw out that annoy Mr. B so much. (I can’t imagine why).

A marriage is the classic definition of a slog. But the crazy thing about marrying someone who you know you are meant for is that it never feels like one. It never ceases to amaze me that,for four years, I haven’t for a minute been bored. It’s hard to feel bored with someone who challenges you to think differently, who makes you laugh, and who stands behind you like a rock when you can’t go anymore. Someone who travels the world with you. Someone who, not completes you, but complements you, someone who balances out your flaws with his strengths.

All of these things, you feel on a day-to-day basis, but it’s hard to appreciate on a larger scale. The wedding is one of the only times you get to see experience all these trappings of marriage at work, which is a shame, since a wedding is also the most stressful day of your life.

But when I look back at our pictures over the last four years, I see the magic of marriage at work all over again, quietly. And I can’t believe I don’t see that, day by day, we’re building something extraordinary together, something not everyone is fortunate enough to have. And I zoom out of the slog, and into the highlights. And I realize that marriage, which is cool to hate on as an outmoded system of business transactions nowadays, is really a form of modern magic that brings two people who have complete lives before, but makes their lives even better together. And it makes you realize that life is really beautiful.