Today my husband and I celebrate four years of marriage together.

Four years filled with laughter and tears; trying and triumphs; challenges and successes.

In those four years we made our girl. I turned thirty. We said goodbye to our first fur baby. We welcomed a crazy black lab to the family. We've become better friends. And better versions of ourselves. 

And today, as I wrote my obligatory Instagram homage to our marriage, I thought about the caption, and saying something flowery like- Happy Anniversary, I love you more and more every day. As the vast majority of our peers do.

But its really not my style.

And we don't live in a fairytale. This love is not made of fantasy and fairy dust.

It is real. It is alive. It goes through changes and strife; amazing days, and some not so pretty.

And storybook lovers don't pay bills, or pull all-nighters with sick kids. They don't give their wife injections to create their family. They don't make decisions to say good bye to loved ones- canine or otherwise. They don't pick up the pieces after miscarriages or endure stressed out-exhaustion-fueled arguments.

But we do. We do all of these things and more. And  it's our real-life, grounded love that gets us through those times. And its tough as shit.

It fights for us, and our family. It challenges us- to be better. Every day.

 And it's gotten us through the past four years; and it will do its damnedest to get us through the next 40. Because that's what real love does.

And I'll take that kind of love over fairy dust any day.