Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage

The irony of living among people who place peace and quiet at the top of their priority list is that they’re often very angry.

That’s the irony of escaping urban elitism: the consistent mediocrity of the suburbs will make you into more of an elitist.

Maybe this is a feature of that rock-bottom feeling you sometimes get when you’re married: All bad emotions come packaged with other bad emotions. No sadness is just sadness. No weakness is just weakness. Sadness is desperation is shame is weakness is grief is desolation is longing is abandonment is death.

I wanted a cross between a therapist and a cowboy.

When Bill sneezes, it’s like a blast from an air horn aimed at your face. No matter where he is in the house, his sneezes are excruciatingly loud. Somehow there are two notes involved, a screechy high one and a shouty low one. It’s as if someone in the next room has spotted a bear and they’re making this high-pitched yet also bellowing bark of hyst

Contrary to popular wisdom, growing older does not make you less conflicted. In fact, you become more and more conflicted by the second. You can see all sides of any given thing. It’s all stupid bullshit and you want all of it, everything, and you also want none of it, it can all go fuck itself.

After a while, it can be hard to know who to hate more, the people letting their dogs shit all over the place or the people thrusting their shitting-dog cartoons in your face at every turn.

That’s life in the suburbs: pretending that nothing is bothering you while you eat something shitty.

Marriage can’t always be about living your best lives in sync. Because some of the peak moments of a marriage are when you share in your insecurities, your anxieties, your fears, and your longing. That commitment, the one that can withstand and even revel in the darkest corridors of a life, grows and evolves and eventually transcends a contract or