I’m writing this in the train on my way to Traunstein, a charming town in South of Bavaria where you have a nice view of the Alps. It’s my third visit to Traunstein with my husband who is sitting beside me. That’s right, I got married and that’s to the kindest, most patient and supportive, loving human being I met. That’s all I can say for now because he keeps annoying me with being the world champion in football since we started the journey this morning.We’re coming to the old town to visit his parents who are actually from Stuttgart, but we’re in to have a nice time together.
Last night, a good friend of mine who I met in Munich came to visit us. She asked how it’s like to be married. I said it’s not like my life changed from one day to the next. It’s pretty normal as it is. I don’t have such all-too romantic expectations about being married. But there’s an understated happiness about it. It’s quiet and content. It’s not seeking for validation for how people define happiness and marriage.
I said happy, but not perfect. It’s like catching the flu together inadvertently, and making tea and taking turns fetching the Chinese takeaway every night. It’s your husband’s friends and parents teasing when you are referred by him as “Meine Frau”. It’s the video calls from his parents while they drink wine in the balcony and tell you how they recall that nice wonderful night before the wedding, wrapped with our blankets having wine in the garden enjoying ourselves like children.
It’s the act of annoying each other and getting annoyed. It’s messing up and cleaning up. It’s the silly fights and consequently explaining perspectives. It’s telling myself I don’t have to be right all the time, I just want to be happy. And apparently that’s how he is too. It’s cooking dinner and he downs the whole thing. It’s quiet afternoons together. It’s running together. It’s working, it’s studying, the same way as before.
It’s the seeming ordinariness of day to day life which started way before we got married, the way everyday became gloriously ordinary.
Happiness is.
