Marriage

My kids are sick. Vomit everywhere, and it’s one of those situations that make me profoundly grateful to have a partner. Being raised by a single parent, I’m achingly aware of how hard it is to parent alone, and consistently surprised, even after nine years of raising children together, how very NICE it is to have a buddy. Someone to clean the puke when you’re cleaning the kids. Someone to disinfect the floor when you’re changing a sleepy, sobbing, sick girl. Someone to bring you coffee when the sick child is asleep on top of you. 


Marriage is made up of many things. There’s a sense of friendship, genuine camaraderie. My husband is really a fun guy to be around, his mind is fast and his sense of humor is infectious. There’s a shared intellectual bend to us – we both are geared more intellectually, we like to read and debate and think – we follow politics and argue religious theory for fun. There’s a sense of passion, a physical attraction that’s always there too. But I think the key to our marriage, what makes our marriage better than most, is that we’re on the same team. We have the same goals, we’re walking the same path. We live dramatically different lives, in so many ways. He’s out of the house five days a week, and I’m at home taking care of kids. We are incredibly different in other ways too – he’s much more structured, more organized and a lot goofier than I am. But he’s my best friend, and my partner, and after the past three days of being puked on, I’m incredibly aware of how blessed I am to have him, to be able to share this life, these kids (puke and all) with him.