how's married life?

The buzz question asked by many these past few months are "how's married life" which makes me wonder if I have become that boring that people would need to ask me this question or perhaps its just a question one has to ask like "so when's your turn?" after finding out someone you know got preggers, or "when's your turn?" to an unmarried friend after finding out someone they know got hitched...

I feel that this question is a filler question. A kind of question you ask in awkward moments of thick silence or a kind of question you ask someone you aren't quite close to... or perhaps this is just it, married life full stop. Everything revolves around your marriage and thus all questions will revolve around your marriage life.

So how does one answer this question "how's married life". Do people want to hear the truth about how things are going? Do they want to hear scandalous stories so that they can talk about it behind your back? Do they want tips for their up-coming marriage? Do they want a glimpse of the married side of life? Do they want to win bets? What do they really want to hear? What would you want to hear?

This question actually grates at my nerves simply because it's a question that annoys me and its a questions with so so many answers. So I prepare a standard response to this question. "Things are going okay. It's a new adventure everyday!" {inject smile and twinkle in eye}. "Good to hear" they would usually say. And then the conversation turns to something else or drops into a pregnant silence of the strange variety.

In all honesty however, I want to tell them the truth about how my marriage life has been. I want to talk about how I feel neither here nor there, torn between my new home and my old. I want to talk about the mess in my home that doesn't magically clear itself or how dust bunnies spring up every other freaking day out of the seemingly thin air. I want to talk about nagging and how I am always accused of it but no matter what I say nothing happens anyway. I want to talk about not being able to cook well and how frustrating it is to learn a new skill.

I want to talk about how driving is not easy for me and that it pisses the pants off me when people ask me to just buy a car and drive ~ as if money could materialise out of thin air and courage could be found at the bottom of a can of buttoned mushrooms in my cupboard. I want to tell them that if I had the courage I would already be driving years ago but it is the fear in me that keeps me from venturing onto a freaking highway filled with quarter baked drivers. I would then like to tell them to just think about their own fear and how they would feel if they were asked to just go out and do the thing that scares them. I would like them to feel the queasiness and the fear and then the shame and embarrassment of not being able to do something that is seemingly so simple.

I want to talk about how I worry about my finances and wonder how we will start saving for those grand dreams I have conjured up in my mind. I want to talk about in-laws and the things they say and how it is never easy to juggle everyone's emotions. I want to talk about our familes and how they will pay their bills. I want to talk about their health and what the future will bring. I want to talk about dying and how to cope with it and how prepared we are for the inevitable.

I want to talk about one day owning a little garden where I can grow herbs and shrubs and flowers and how my green thumb is not really green and how annoying it is that I can't seem to grow anything at the moment out of my little pots. I want to talk about owning a house and how that's ridiculously expensive. I want to talk about my pet Belle and how I think that sometimes I have to give her away but its probably one of the hardest things I would need to do in my life.

I want to talk about how unattractive I feel at the moment. I want to talk about how marriage is not like I how I imagined it to be. I want to talk about my frustrations that although I am a communicator I can't seem to communicate with the people closest to me. I want to talk about my anger and frustrations about not being understood. I want to talk about how giving in and how that is just plain hard work. I want to talk about walking on broken glass, tiptoeing around shards of shimmering glass for fear of being yelled. I want to talk about the words "hungry, tired, and sleepy" and how they are the words I hear most these days. I want to talk about the lost of romance.

Talking about the good bits with all its sunshine and rainbows are great but I talk about it all the time. It's the things that I don't about that burden my heart and keep me up at night so much so that I want to just lapse in silence or to go totally mental and scream. But I choose to scream silently and then fall into a peaceful silence. I swallow everything up and bury it in my heart and then decide to type out a blog post so fast and furiously that my finger tips scream bloody murder so that I will remember how I felt and work towards making things better one small step at a time.

And in the meantime, should someone asks me "how's married life" I will smile with a twinkle in my eye betraying the truth and say "Things are going okay. It's a new adventure everyday!"