The first question people asked when I got married was “does anything feel different?” and naturally I would say “no, were just married now”, but five months in I can tell you that, everything feels different. Everything changed. Not in a bad way. I am more in love with this man than I have ever been in the 9 years we have been together. The thing about being married is that you finally get to just relax. When you’re boyfriend and girlfriend you’re wondering when you’ll be engaged. When you’re engaged you’re wondering when you’ll be married. Those little anxieties make it hard to just focus on love. You’re always anticipating what’s coming next but once you’re married, that’s it. You can just chill.
We didn’t have a big wedding. We went to the courthouse on a Wednesday, got married, then had pizza and cake. I wore jeans. I’m not saying that’s a problem, I’m saying that we wanted to be married and to us it just didn’t matter how, where or when. We had a child before we got married (and after we got engaged) so our focus was raising him before getting married. He turned five, we decided it was time to prioritize our relationship again and our bond and we did. I always said I wanted to wait til I was my goal weight and had my dream body, but in that case, I probably wouldn’t be here typing this right now cause I am still nowhere near that. We picked a date on a random night and that was that. We bought our outfits the day of and did our thing. My big sister and my aunt were our witness. I even got to have my grandma there which is a huge deal because she don’t like planes and shit. We took a fire pic, my caption ate and that was it. We were married! (that weekend we had a little ceremony with my whole family but I don’t have no pics of that because well, dream body blah blah, no need to get into that) The point is, finally, after 8 years, a kid, a college degree, two moves to two states, a published book, a shoulder injury, we were finally married. Now what?
Nothing. That’s what. We could just love each other. We didn’t have to worry about how we would look, who would be there, what we would wear, venue, nothing. We could just finally enjoy love. We could just relax. If you don’t know my story with my husband, let me give you the short version. He saw me on the train, he tweeted me and said “think I just saw you on the train”. We exchanged numbers and stayed friends. Did we like each other? Yes. The stars just weren’t aligned for us yet. We remained the best of friends for 5 years. One day, I realized the conversations getting better, deeper, more loving. I went on vacation with my mom and told her I really liked him and she said “this isn’t just some guy, this is your best friend, if it doesn’t work you’ll lose that.” I came back from vacation, he asked me on a date and made it very clear that if I didn’t like him, we could just go back to being friends… we’ve been together ever since. My husband is the nicest, funniest, greatest, most handsomest man in the whole world. When people say they married their best friend, I really mean that. We started dating, it was perfect. We got engaged 2 years in, then I got pregnant and our focus was on raising our son. I mean, were still raising him, obviously, but those first 5 years require all your focus and attention until they hit the “I wanna do it myselfffffff” stage. But this isn’t about our son. Let’s focus.
We get to just love. No worrying, no getting to know each other, we can just love each other. We get to love ourselves more too. I am more in tune with my femininity than ever before. I want to take care of myself more. I struggled to find the “girly” version of me. I was stuck in my “homie” version and I felt like I was more his little bro than his GIRL, you know. I feel more beautiful. I am a wife now. What’s more feminine than that?! I feel safe with my husband and it allows me to just be a woman and exist and not have to even look up when i’m walking thru the airport because I know he got me. Yes, THAT safe. You promised someone forever so you want to make sure that you take good care of yourself in order to fulfill the legal obligation you have to never let this person down. When you get married, you get to breathe. It’s like a secret “We did it” moment. We decided that our love was strong enough to sign for. I loved someone so much I said, yeah, I’ll share all my snacks with you. I’ll change my last name and start this legacy with you.
I believe that love is crucial. I know back then, people married for convenience, for comfort, for stability, but I married for love. You need love. There has to be love in everything you do, no matter what it is. It’s why all these older generations end up so miserable cause there’s no love. Nothing changed, physically. We came home to the same apartment, we had the same routine, our son still had to go to school the next day, but now we were married. The love grew immediately. It was like wow, I get to love this person for the rest of my life. So you want to do it right. You want to give them the best version of you. You get closer to God and put him at the center of your marriage and he helps guide you guys with, you guessed it, love.
What I’m saying is, stop letting people make you feel like marriage is just a piece of paper. Stop making it feel like a government deal, I mean yeah they are involved but it’s so much more than that. You are their voice when they cannot answer for themselves. You are their teammate when they cannot do it alone. Once you get married you get to relax in Love. You get to chill. Dates are more fun because you don’t have to bring up those conversations of, where is this going, when are we doing this. We laugh more, we cry more, we snuggle more, we love more. We love ourselves more and we love each other more. He is the protector and the provider of his family. He has brought me safety and guidance to allow me to just be and know he has my back. He has taught our son to honor me and treat me as the queen of the house. In turn, I nurture him, I provide the safety for him to be soft, to feel loved, to allow himself to feel defeat in my arms so that he never has to accept it or face it alone. Marriage is a never ending vacation with your favorite person and yeah some days it may rain on your vacation but at least you chose the perfect person to stay in and snuggle with.
A Collection of Wavy Essays 