On Mindy and Marriage

The funny thing about being a new mom is that I have both tons of time and no time at all.  It's quite bizarre.  

The nice thing is that books take tons of time to read but can be read in spurts of no time at all, so I actually get to do some reading!  I recently finished Mindy Kaling's muy excellente book, Is everyone hanging out without me? (And other concerns) 

Go read it! 

But I'm going to ruin one of the chapters for you.  

(It's ok, it's a short one! But it is the best one.)

So the chapter calls on married people to "step it up" because she thinks marriage is great and would like to get married one day, but mostly from her married friends she hears that marriage is hard and requires counseling and is WORK. But in watching her parents, she sees that they're not head over heels in love constantly but that they're happy and have a good friendship and companionship.  A lot of times today, people get married cause they're sooooo in love and sooooo excited and want a big fancy party, but they're not necessarily good friends with their intended.  About that, Mindy says, 

"In the Shakespearean comedies, the wedding is the end, and there isn't much indication of what happily ever after will look like day to day.  In real life, shouldn't a wedding be an awesome party you throw with your great pal, in the presence of a bunch of your other friends?  A great day, for sure, but not the  beginning and certainly not the end of your friendship with a person you can't wait to talk about gardening with for the next forty years."

You tell it, Mindy!

But what I really love is what she says about marriage being WORK.  

"Maybe the point is that any marriage is work, but you may as well pick work that you like. Writing this book is work, but it's fun work, and I picked it and I enjoy doing it with you, Reader.  It's my job, and it's a job I like.  Tim, on the other hand, had chosen a very tough and bad-sounding job, like being the guy who scrapes barnacles off the pylons of an oil rig in the frigid Arctic Sea."

I LOVE that.  She totally said exactly what I've felt about being married! Because marriage IS hard work--there's different stresses, and learning to work and live with each other, and all sorts of other difficult things--but I love Jesse and he's my best pal so it's hard work that I like! (And thankfully much more pleasant than scraping barnacles off of pylons in frigid water ;D)

Thanks for saying what I wanted to say but couldn't quite put in words, Mindy! And hey, the rest of you, go read her book!