Jen and Dave

As time is relevant to the observer, last night in Seoul, South Korea found JJ and I facing our 1st Anniversary as a wedded couple (fourteen hours before our family and friends would be recognizing it back home in good ol' Midwest Minnesota). Needless to say, we were both extremely happy to share such a beautiful and happy milestone with each other. We celebrated together by dining at our favorite Indian restaurant here in Seoul, and sharing memories and nostalgia of the past year by discussing old stories, and looking at our wedding pictures. Naturally, I also found time to ponder and reflect during the day, when I had some time to myself.

And here's the interesting thing that I discovered early on in my musings: as I gazed around our apartment, viewing the display and arrangement of our current life, I discovered how very mundane things actually were. I mean, there it was: our anniversary of one year of marriage (and five years being together) produced me in front of my computer playing some video games, and Jen laying on the couch, "watching a movie" (but in reality taking a nap).

Now, that was the reality of the situation. A fairy tale, mind you, might be very different. We might have found ourselves, upon waking in the morning of our anniversary, in some posh hotel, being gently caressed by the creamiest of silk sheets, and catered to our every whim by an ever-present and acquiescent hotel staff. We might have found ourselves waking under the sun of another country, enjoying a mini-vacation to some foreign land. We might have even found ourselves engaged in a transaction of exchanging pricey gifts, in a way to commemorate this milestone occasion with material gifts (instead of sharing a mesmerizing evening floating to the live orchestral sounds of Ennio Morricone). But that, my friend, was not the reality of the situation.

No, the reality was something much deeper than a hotel room; something far richer than a gift receipt; and something much more endearing than a foreign sunrise. Upon that day of one year of marriage together, the reality of the world found me with a head cold, in a t-shirt and pajama pants, engaged in a furious transaction of WASD keyboard keys and movement of my pc mouse. It found JJ relaxing in her own pj's, curled under a blanket, fast asleep to the sounds of a movie she's tried to finish before, and hasn't. It found us together, at our most real, our most relaxed, and most decidedly, not at our best or most glamorous. And yet, it found us together, more in love than ever, sharing something than can only come with four years of dating, and one year of marriage: total, and complete trust in each other, and comfort. The knowledge that being together is what counts, and sharing life and love is the greatest gift to give and receive. And that being together, sharing a lazy Sunday, basking in the mundane, the "normal", and not some delusional Hollywood idea of extravagance, is a pleasure truly to be treasured in our relationship.

For us, we'll take the reality any day.