Growing up on romance novels like “The Notebook”, I had formed quite unrealistic and stereotypical notions of what love should look like. I was in love with LOVE. It just became the single most important thing in my life and I started looking for it everywhere. I was convinced that it was the only thing that could ever make me truly happy.
Long before I had met ‘The One’, I had started writing these long, heartfelt love letters to him.
Yes, I wanted the fairytale.

The possibility of a happily ever after with this person who you think is ‘Perfect’ , is enthralling to say in the least.
Falling in love is the easy part though- it feels like free falling into ecstasy.

But to make love last takes real work.
As whispered sweet nothings slowly turn into the guttural snores of the deep night, it might be easy to think that love is starting to fade, whereas in reality it has just begun.
To take the one you love for granted is something we all do, at different points of our lives.

Yesterday evening, as I stood arguing hostilely with Renji over some utterly inconsequential errand of the day, I had for a moment forgotten that I was already in my fairytale.

In a world of endless tragedies, how incredibly lucky was I to have found someone to love and be loved by.

And yet I keep forgetting;
Keep messing up, again and again.
But I try and make amends; try to realise how hurtful I must have been and seek to repair the day-to-day ruptures in our marriage.
Because I want to make ‘us’ last.
As we do this together, softening each others’ sharper edges through the years, I find myself changing into someone better.

And I smile because here right now is my ‘Happily ever after’.