Monthly Archive

I married young.

Twenty felt grown at the time. It does not, in hindsight.

We did not have a dramatic love story. There were no grand gestures or cinematic moments. No lightning bolt when our hands touched. I was attracted to him, yes — but our beginning was steady, not electric.

If I’m honest, I used to wonder whether that meant something was missing.

I’ve read the novels. The ones that describe a spark so strong it feels almost violent. The kind of chemistry that consumes the room. I’m not sure we ever had that. What we had was conversation. Laughter. Ease. A shared sense that life together would be calm rather than chaotic.

Over twenty years, that steadiness has held.

We have never had a disagreement so sharp that I thought we might split. There have been seasons of distance. Moments when I wondered if we married too quickly. A period, around ten years in, when I quietly questioned whether I had mistaken comfort for compatibility.

Those thoughts did not linger. But they existed.

What we have built is something less dramatic and, perhaps, more durable.

We talk. Constantly. The best parts of our holidays are often the drives — long stretches of road where conversation unfolds without effort. We were careful, even when our daughter was young, not to lose ourselves entirely in parenting. We did not want to wake up to an empty house and realize we were strangers.

Now, with twenty years behind us, I can say this:

I am still myself.

Marriage did not swallow me. It did not shrink me. I have always known I could stand on my own two feet if I needed to. That independence has never threatened him, and his steadiness has never confined me.

Do I sometimes wish for more tenderness? Yes. I wish he would come up behind me in the kitchen and wrap his arms around me without prompting. I wish for small, unasked-for gestures. Not grand passion — just quiet closeness.

But longing for more does not mean lacking love.

It means I am still human. Still wanting. Still alive to the idea that marriage can continue growing, even twenty years in.

There is something deeply reassuring about choosing one another, again and again, without fireworks. Without spectacle.

Just two people who talk well. Travel well. Think similarly. Believe similarly.

It may not be the sort of love written about in novels.

But it is ours. It has grown with us — quieter, deeper, more certain.

And after twenty years, that feels like something rare.

– Kate