Today is not special. It’s not my birthday or Tyler’s birthday. It’s not Valentine’s day. It’s not the anniversary of when we started dating, got engaged, got married, or first ate tacos. But for some reason, this has been on my mind.

Recently, a sweet friend of mine got married. It has had me thinking on our wedding and those early days of marriage. They were just beautiful. Everything was so new and exciting. Our days were full of firsts. Even the most mundane task seemed a land mark (yes, we took pictures of our first grocery shopping trip together). We were so in love, and I felt I had never been as happy.

Well, after over three years of marriage, things aren’t so new anymore. Grocery shopping is not a picture-worthy event. I’ve lost count of the meals we’ve eaten together . I’m used to the last name. And if we eat like we did on our honey moon, we get fat.

My dad always said marriage isn’t all moonlight and roses. He meant, of course, that marriage is work and it takes place in real life, not a movie. I used to find that a somewhat disappointing prospect, but he wasn’t wrong.

Some people in the world act like the newness and excitement of a relationship is a “good” in and of itself. When life starts being routine or a spouse’s imperfections become more evident, they may meet someone new at work or school. They begin to confide in that person or seek that person’s approval. They are taken in by the novelty, the freshness that is gone from their marriage.

But, guess what? New relationships are only new for a minute. Chasing the excitment of something new will not do. You will never be able to hang on to that newness unless you live in a perpetual state of abandoning your partners and starting over. I don’t know many who would say they want that, and even fewer who would want to date that.

Is that it then? We get a few weeks of newly-wed bliss, and then it’s all just routine and grit until the end?

Whatever marriage is, it will never be new again.

Before I grieve over the end of the newly wed phase, I find myself thinking about what I have now that I didn’t have then. I’m aware that three years isn’t that long. Many people have loved and lived with their spouses for much longer, but give us time. We haven’t faced all the trials a life together can bring, but we have faced much already.

We’ve faced uncertainty about the future, intense stress, financial instability, a near-death emergency, dissapointments, and three plus years of infertility. We have cried and laughed. We’ve dreamt and planned. We’ve fought and forgiven.

We’ve shared so much already, and it’s only been three years…and four months. And I am learning that the most beautiful manifestations of love come later, when it’s no longer new.

When I make Tyler an egg, I’m very careful not to break the yolk. He likes it oozing all over his plate. When he makes me an egg, he smashes that thing on purpose and cooks it until it’s dry, thank you. That will never be in a song, but it’s love.

In the early stages of the Corona virus, I was feeling a lot of anxiety. It was making it very difficult for me to sleep at night. I get up between 3 and 4am every morning for work, so it became a vicious cycle of me not being able to sleep and then panicking about not sleeping and how soon I had to get up, making it worse. Tyler started rubbing my shoulders and neck with lavender and singing to me to help me fall sleep. That may not a rom com make, but it’s love.

I’ve lost count of the number of times Tyler has held me while I sobbed about not being pregnant. He smooths my hair and promises me we will have children. It’s not moonlight and roses, but it’s love.

Now, I said a marriage will never be new again, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t exciting. There are bends in the road and new things to experience together. There are moments of the most intense joy I’ve ever felt. It can, at times, be passionate or peaceful. Thrilling or comforting.

Then there are other days.

Days when you look more like Bellatrix Lestrange than Bella Hadid and you spend half the day doing dishes and the other half dirtying more. He’s tired after a long, hard day. You need him to be loving and charming, though you’re far from it yourself. Your cup is empty and he has nothing to fill it with. He speaks sharply to you. And you’re not going to take that, so you speak sharply back. And then it’s the battle for Helm’s Deep and neither of you win.

But if you’re doing it right, just wait. All it takes is, “I’m sorry” from one of you, sometimes you and sometimes him. Then there’s a long hug. And you forgive each other and keep going, both a little different than you were before.

And a new day dawns and you’ll find yourself falling in love again in a most breathtaking way.

There will be more fights, but you will keep making up. And every time, you are proving that you aren’t going anywhere. That even though you can be irrational and he can be insensitive or the other way around, you will still choose each other.

And every conversation when driving teaches you more about each other. Every mundane interaction teaches you how to love each other better. Each day spent together teaches you how to be one.

Learning to truly, deeply love another can be very difficult at times, much more difficult than the blind, careless love from courtship. It requires an abandonment of your pride. It requires you to admit that your good intentions may not have been what your spouse needed. It requires you to put another first when you are tired and frustrated. It requires you to really know your spouse – every imperfect and beautiful piece.

Amy Bloom said, “Intimacy is being seen and known as you truly are.” It’s terrifying to be laid so open, to be so vulnerable, but it is the only way love can be true.

I’ll always look back on those early days of marriage and my giddy, newly wedded self with fondness. But I would not want to trade places with her.

I have never loved so deeply or been seen so clearly. There has never been a soul who knows me like Tyler does. I have never spent so much time with a person and yet felt like it was never enough.

At the end of day, there is beauty in the routine. There is magic in the safety of being so well known and so well loved, in being chosen again and again no matter what I do wrong or what life throws at us.

So, no it’s not new anymore. But I would never go back to being less known, I would never go back to when our love was untested. Through the incredible, the horrible, and the in between, we’ve proven that we’re in this.

In the end, I would much rather love long.