Marriage Musings: Always Kiss Me Goodnight

Welcome to the first installment of a series of posts I've decided to call marriage musings. This might be a little ambitious since, to date, I only have three ideas for what I'm going to include in the series, but I'm just going to push on anyways with the confidence that more will come with time.

For this first marriage musing, I'm going to have to come right out and say that our married life is going quite swimmingly. The other day, as we were watching our nightly episode of Six Feet Under, one of the characters made a comment about the first year of marriage being the toughest. We immediately exchanged a glance and noted that we have not yet felt that way. I attribute this to three things. First, we're undoubtedly still in that honeymoon phase you hear so much about. Secondly, I think we're still on cloud nine that we're actually together. In the same city. With no plane ticket ominously looming over our heads waiting to call one of us back home. No, now we're creating a home together, and that is a truly wonderful feeling. Lastly, I feel that we really work at our relationship, our connection and our communication.

I hesitate to use the word work, but because my thesaurus is failing me, I guess I have to. I hesitate because, though we do work at our marriage, it doesn't feel like work. I can honestly say that I enjoy the effort I put forth to make things run smoothly. When the husband is happy, I feed off his happiness. And when I know that I contributed to his good mood, that feels even better. The work is most definitely worth it.

Plus, a lot of our efforts are fun.

Over the summer, during one of my many trips to the Albert Cuyp Markt, I came across this piece of artwork slash photo display that, despite it's kind of ugly hodgepodge appearance, had a good message.

Always kiss me goodnight.

Of course! Began my inner monologue.

Of course I kiss my man goodnight every night. 
I totally do. Right? 
Yea, I do. I must. 
Why wouldn't I?

I decided that day to really pay attention to these goodnight kisses. It just made sense.

So now, each and every night, I make sure to set aside a special moment. I take the time to say goodnight, and give that handsome husband of mine a kiss. This tiny moment in time gives us one last chance to really connect before we fall asleep. And not only is it nice, it's almost therapeutic as it requires you to leave some of the stress of the day behind you. After all, to give a meaningful kiss, you can't be angry. To give a meaningful kiss, you have to be present. To give a meaningful kiss, you have to let yourself love and feel loved. That hardly seems like work.