This past April, my husband and I celebrated one year since we joined together with friends and family and publicly became man and wife. While I find it so cliche to say I was not ready to be married the sentiment just fits. Perhaps marriage is just one of those things, like I would imagine people feel when they start a family, or buy a house. It is one of those big things that make you realize your life is making progress, you're growing up;  these things, for whatever reason, make us feel overwhelmed and under prepared. In the past year of my married life I have focused on one common thread. Through each disagreement and each celebration, I realized that we are hungry individuals. Relationships evolve and naturally we evolve with them. We change preferences, we mold to be more likable, less contrary, and while I hate those articles that make women seem like weakling sidekicks to their bread winning husbands, it seems easy to sucucmb to this marginal population after so long. I have found that dreams or goals that I held years ago have been pushed to the side for the sake of stability. I have seen my once strong will and independent streak become more reliant on agreeability. In standing back to reason with these self discoveries I had to reconcile with the fact that while I have always been independent, I have also been needy.

We all are.

That's okay.

In examining my own petty arguments or frustrations, I realized just how hungry we are.  Single, married, divorced, dating, these terms become irrelevant, we  all crave the approval of those we love. First I thought it was my warped sense of love. It must be me, this can't be normal, but alas, it is! It is normal and it is okay! We are creatures made for relationship; the give and take, the pretty and ugly, we are hungry for connection, for accountability, for something beyond total agreeability or lonely solitude.  We were made for the knock down, drag out fights, as well as the make up dinners and apology notes. Our image of love has a lot to do with how we have been loved but it also has a lot to do with how much we are willing to learn. What we know is not the end all be all and we could never sustain a relationship with that mentality. The sooner we realize that we are all hungry for the true existence of love-- affirmation, kindness, patience-- the sooner our relationships can grow boundlessly.