To you and the vein throbbing in my forehead.

There comes a point in your life when you let go of all the excess and hold on to only what is most important. Be it people, relationships, places or objects. There are friends and then there are your ride or die friends. Who stay with you no matter what. Who you can count on to be there for you day in and day out.

One of those for me is my husband Zain. And the other one, you guessed it: is the throbbing vein in my forehead. They will be there. Omnipresent. Annoying. They will be by my side even when I would rather be left alone. They are the ones that keep me going. They are the ones that I wake up every morning to and the ones I retire at night with. They are the ones that make me take pain killers but also the ones that keep me hustling.

Stress in your thirties is real y’all. And marriage is weird. One day you decide to live with this person and choose to complain about everything and argue over who got the least amount of sleep last night.

But almost 10 years into marriage (or is it 9?) you settle into a level of comfort. You “tolerate” each other’s Netflix choices and the fact that the towel never WILL go on the towel bar. But you learn to live with it. So is the stress of day to day life. In the process my nerves may have taken a beating but they have come out stronger. I have learned to accept stress like I have learned to live with his MANY annoyances. That throbbing vein lets me know I am human and alive. And that wet towel lets me know he is around and I can count on him to listen patiently while I whine and rant and rage-clean. May be one day he will hang it up without me telling him and then we will sit and have a nice chat about the weather or the current political climate. (One can always dream). But for now I am enjoying this crazy wild ride called life.