On Marriage

Being married in your 30s isn't easy, and adding young children to the mix makes things exponentially more difficult. As the trappings of courtship and early wedded life are slowly stripped away, your life is concentrated down to the few things matter most: mid-career effort, raising your children and the moments you steal from the first two in order to keep your marriage alive until Spring comes again. The ruthless calculus of effort and exhaustion demands that everything else be dropped.

Under these straightened circumstances, a successful marriage isn't necessarily an architectural marvel to behold from afar; rather, it is a particularly strong foundation that allows the other things in your life to flourish. And just as no one appreciates the strength of a foundation until they are caught in a building that is collapsing, a strong marriage is unobtrusive until it starts unravelling.

If you are lucky (and I am), you will receive gentle reminders of these truisms without being party to a disintegrating marriage. I was given one such reminder a short while ago: my wife got up from bed to visit the restroom after we fell asleep holding hands. My sleep-addled mind was struck by how cold my hand felt without her holding it -- so much so that two days later I still feel the need to commit my recollection of the experience to paper.

Anyhow... this code isn't going to write itself. I do love my wife though, and that makes the grind just that bit more tolerable.