If you’ve been here since the beginning, you have known my husband since the aughts (nearly), back when he was emoji-bf. We’ve come a long way; today, we are now married two whole years. And it’s a happy occasion!

I feel the need to say that because a lot of times in the past year when people wish me Happy Something, it’s not happy at all. Birthday? Not happy, a cruel demarcation of time and my waning fertility. Hanukkah and Christmas? Not happy, as my matching PJ sets (mom, dad and baby) sit in my parent’s basement because I can’t have them in my house.

But anniversary? Definitely happy. I’m so, so happy that I found a partner, and that he has been everything and more to me.

Last year on our first anniversary of marriage, I was on a hiatus from the blog, and kind of on a hiatus from life in general. But this year, I need to celebrate it. In fact, I had a completely different blog scheduled to go out today and I delayed it because this is more important.

There’s a trend on TikTok at the moment that says “please explain to me what you mean by marriage is hard,” and then people stitch together moments of their husbands leaving food on the counter, or leaving their dirty socks beside, not inside, the hamper.

All of those things are hard. But you know what’s REALLY hard? Having your first child die in the first year of your marriage. That is brutally hard. And you know the tough part? In the second year of marriage, your child is still dead. Hard.

But we’re still here.

I’ve seen a meme on Instagram before that says you can predict how badly a relationship is going by how much the couple writes mushy stuff about each other on social media. I consider myself exempt from that. My sweet husband had literally no idea I was going to write this. Hell, I didn’t know either until I couldn’t stop reflecting and decided to put my thoughts in a document at midnight last night. To be honest, he probably won’t love this post (way too many private feelings on the internet!), but it’s all true.

Marriage is hard. But it’s also the best thing ever.

We chose to get married at a resort in Mexico, and we knew we probably wouldn’t be the only couple with the same idea. The resort was like a well-oiled machine, they clearly hosted weddings there often. But when we arrived, we realized there was actually only one other couple getting married the same day/weekend as us, and coincidentally, the groom had the same name as my husband! We ran into them after each of our ceremonies, when we were both walking around the hotel with our respective photography teams taking pictures. We even made our photographers take a photo of the four of us together!

Three months after our wedding, we were on our belated honeymoon in Curacao when I got a text from the bride. Her husband was in a horrific accident, and he had died. She told me to “cherish every day.”

I won’t say I have been cherishing every day, some of them have been really, really shitty, but I have definitely been trying my best to cherish my relationship.

In classic wedding vows, you say, “in sickness and in health.” I never realized how much that would be necessary in our first few years of marriage, both in physical and mental health. I used to cringe when I heard brides say to their grooms in their vows that their husbands-to-be were their best friends. How strange, while surrounded by their real best friends up at the altar!

Now, I get it. Not only do I get it, I say it literally every day to my husband, “you’re my best friend in the whole wide world.” Like, probably 5 times a day. He is the only person who has been there every day, and there are many days when he is the only person I talk to.

He was not just there with me in the hospital, but he’s there with me at home. He has seen the many times I’ve been crying in the corner of the couch. He has talked to me on the phone during a panic attack. He has left the room because his presence was making me nervous while I was taking my blood pressure. Sometimes he leaves me alone, especially at my request. But sometimes, he knows I could use a distraction and he plans a staycation, or a vacation, or he just calls an Uber and takes me to Brookfield Place so I can walk around and get some physical activity without getting sweaty. He gets me, he accepts me, and he’s there for me.

Every relationship has trials and tribulations. I didn’t realize our first bout of them would arrive so quickly, but they did.

I don’t think anyone in the world would come to me for relationship advice. Mostly because I’m a hot mess and I don’t think anyone would come to me for any kind of advice. But if anyone ever asked me, I would say communication is key. This seems obvious, but especially in our relationship where we are so completely different in our personalities and communication styles, it’s important that we keep open lines of both talking and listening. We’ve done a lot of both over the past two years, and I hope it continues.

I know our next year will be even better. Not because I know we will have a living baby, that is very much out of our hands. But I know, because we love each other more every day. Happy anniversary my love (if you ever read this). I love you to the next galaxy and back.