on being young and married

To be young and to get married, and to not be a Baptist, an innocent, or pregnant, is seldom seen. And we are not doing the young hip thing. We live in a rented Cape Cod with a big yard for our dogs and hardwood floors and a fireplace for us. Last Saturday, we lounged on our bed playing Trivial Pursuit from the early 1980s until the grand old hour of ten o’clock.
We like our soft sheets. I am planting a flower garden. Yesterday, my husband polished my grandmother’s silver salt and pepper set, and I thought my heart would crack open with love.
I have done the young angst thing, complete with cigarettes and greasy food and spiky dyed hair.
And you know, this is better. The clean counter of our kitchen luminous in the morning sun, the long couch bought with a Christmas bonus, the morning argument over who takes the first shower. I sleep well. I eat well. I take baths on Sunday afternoons and look at my knees, naked and loved, and I do not wish I were alone.
I do not think we love each other more than anybody else in the world. The only difference I can see is that we did not creep towards marriage, we did not decide to give up our cherished independence, but instead we worked for it, yearned for it, and now that we are here, we are so very glad.
But we are newlyweds, clocking in at six months this Saturday. The real achievement will not be staying in love—for who can do that, anyway?— or even just staying together—because we all know those couples who sleep in separate beds and don’t talk to each other—but instead, staying really married, past those periods of intense dislike and general apathy and towards an overall harmonious partnership.
Wish us luck ;)