For My Best Friend (Who Will One Day Get Me a Quokka)
It seems like a good time to put this in writing. Josh is my best friend. I have other close friends, but Josh is my best friend. I tell him everything, more than he ever wanted to know. (Especially more than he ever wanted to know beginning around 11 o’clock at night when his eyes are fluttering towards sleep and I have a burning need to tell him all. of. my. feelings. All of them. Every last one.)
I recently read that “individuals who consider their spouse to be their best friend are more satisfied with their lives overall. Twice as satisfied, as it turns out.”
[Big sigh of relief. I was nervous about what the one view would be when I clicked over to read. What if it said individuals who consider their spouse an attentive listener when they’re trying to fall asleep are happier? Because we fail in that department. I constantly have to say, “Josh? Josh? Are you listening to all of my feelings?”]
The New York Times had a beautiful infertility essay recently, written by a woman ten years after cancer that ended with this thought: “Nobody tells you how long marriage is. When you fall in love, when you have fun with somebody, when you enjoy the way they see the world, nobody ever says, ‘This person will change. And so you will be married to two, three, four, five or 10 people throughout the course of your life, as you live out your vows’.”
Josh and I aren’t the same people we were when we first said our vows, almost seventeen years ago. But he’s still my best friend. And he tells me I’m his, except between the hours of 11 pm and 6 am when he’s trying to sleep and I have so many feelings.
10 comments
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This is beautiful. I am laugh/crying as I read it because it makes so much sense and sums up marriage so beautifully (also because my husband is nodding at me and giving me that wry look as I read it to him because yeah, it really does sum things up).
Congratulations on seventeen years! May there be many more and may they be happy ones.
Love this! Congrats to you and your best friend ❤️
Me too. In fact, I would find it weird to share more with someone other than my spouse .
Beautiful. Love this one.
Reading this has made me so happy. ❤
For the record, that’s only one feeling.
Absolutely love this! Thank you for reminding me of how important it is to tell our best friends how important they are to us.
This is very sweet! I can relate to it – we frequently both want to chat to each other at the wrong times of day. (His preference is in the morning when I’m still hanging onto sleep. I call it his revenge to my night owl tendencies.)
My SIL recently went to an island where Quokkas live, and tried desperately to get a decent selfies with a quokka. Without much success. It’s an island off Perth, Australia, so doesn’t meet your bleak and barren requirement, but it looks as if it’s 50% desert, so that should at least meet your “barren” test?
Hi Mel! I’ve missed your writing! This made my eyes well up…. what a lovely, lovely post. You guys are so lucky to have each other!!!