TK always sends me these articles that cause my brain to explode. I rarely ever finish them but this one resonated heavily with me. I cosigned immediately on both parts, find them here and here.
While I would love to discuss each point the writer makes, I just want to focus on his description of marriage, because that’s what hit me hardest:
So if we want to find a happy marriage, we need to think small—we need to look at marriage up close and see that it’s built not out of anything poetic, but out of 20,000 mundane Wednesdays.
Marriage isn’t the honeymoon in Thailand—it’s day four of vacation #56 that you take together. Marriage is not celebrating the closing of the deal on the first house—it’s having dinner in that house for the 4,386th time. And it’s certainly not Valentine’s Day.
Marriage is Forgettable Wednesday. Together.
I was only married for 3 years. My experience wasn’t lengthy but it was still a hell of an experience. I can’t tell you what we did when we went on vacation in Honduras/Belize, what we ate at Del Posto in NYC or any other specific time we made a conscious effort to get away. No, I'm lying. In Honduras he thought it was funny as fuck that I allowed a tiny spider monkey to crawl all over me when I'm ticklish as hell. That's besides the point I'm trying to make though.
I remember the 20+ times we went to AT&T park in a single season, the fact that I was cheap as fuck and always brought in Panera or Subway sandwiches for dinner because I refused to spend money on stadium food. We’d split his ear buds and listen to the announcers on a yellow AM/FM radio, then we’d make dumbass comments to each other during pauses. I remember the nights we’d swing through the Burger King drive thru on Van Ness after being out all night drinking and his ability to keep my order in check. “You’re going to be pissed at me tomorrow if I let you eat that much.” I remember always calling him from a grocery store to ask him what he wanted me to make for dinner when I obviously already knew the answer. I remember the nights where we’d end up on opposite ends of the couch, him playing video games and me blogging or online shopping. We’d stay there until he fell asleep in my lap, cause his ass always fell asleep first.
It was just routine, not much excitement or a major source to make memories out of, but that was marriage and when it was good… it was fucking beautiful.
Every so often someone wants to have a deep ass conversation with me. “What are you really looking for?” The answer is disgustingly simple. I want someone that I can do nothing with.
So give me a mundane Tuesday or a run-of-the mill Thursday, as long as you plan on spending 3,000 of them with me—I’m good.