15th Anniversary

I seldom write about my husband. If I do, it is a one-sided banter. This year on our 15th social wedding anniversary, I won’t proclaim that he is the love of my life or the greatest thing that happened to me or that our relationship is magical or that we have amazing chemistry. Because all that would be a lie.

Despite being eloquent, I can never put in words what he is to me today and what our relationship has come to be. If you asked me 10 years ago I wouldn’t have been able to tell you the relevance of our marriage. Together, we continue to learn many life lessons. And together somehow we overcome many hurdles.

This year has been the most trying for both of us. Even though I consider myself the strongest of us, I’ve been most emotional, vulnerable and struggled to get a grip on life. During such times, even without formal training he stepped in to be my grief coach and instilled logic that pissed me off at that moment but made sense after some thought. I have not been able to do the same for him.

Every day we both make unprepared compromises, put up with each other’s idiocies, different ideologies, eccentric work styles, mostly mine, raising my parent, polar opposite creative interests, my compulsive need to clean at odd times, even sometimes telling him what he should or shouldn’t eat, drink, the list goes on.

But in over a decade and half of being together, Ram quietly provided his assurances when I was disgruntled, showing that respect for each other is more than butterflies in the stomach, consistently showing that what happens at home is much more worth than outside perception, that he is proud of me without even saying, and that we don’t have to be a perfect couple to have found our quotidian blessing.