things i lost while sleeping

well, the puppies made it through, and now all the animales sleep inside. We are like one big snuggly family. Most of the time, anyway. The job has gotten easier, things are settling down, after the thanksgiving nightmare, and i have three days off in a row this week (two of which are with my husband.) But I'll be damned because i've been looking for my hammer all morning and just can't seem to find it anywhere.
I don't know why sometimes we seem to create problems for ourselves. They squeeze and seep their way up from the depths and wiggle into our life (which, by the way, has so much promise.) We aren't having to deal with problems like some of our friends and family have and are- no foreclosure, no cancer, and no annoying exes (those have seemed to drift into the woodwork as well, and i am thankful) at least we aren't dealing with these problems YET. But somehow, we find reason to fight, and to scream at each other, to keep things from one another, to forget how we promised just to be good to each other. I wonder sometimes if there is some ambiguous force that whispers to the subconscious and says "you can do whatever you want". And anyone out there who is married realizes, as i do, that this simply isn't so.
I'm learning daily what marriage is all about. I'm not saying I'm good at it, but I'm learning. Anyone who tells you that living together and being married is essentially the same thing is obviously still legally single. It is different. Things hold more weight and water than they once did. You are bound to another person, legally, intimately, emotionally- and not because you have to, not because you are related by blood, but because you chose to be. You stood in front of your nearest and dearest and swore to love this one person no matter what. Of course, half of all marriages end in divorce, so this may or may not actually mean anything. People give up all the time. But I don't want to be in the losing half of that equation. Truly, I don't.
I'm realizing that a lot of being married is an uphill battle. It's a constant struggle- made easier with lots of snuggling and learning when to bite your tongue- and when to use it.
It become blurred, this line between fucking and fighting, making up and making love; days turn into weeks and into years and then you look back and wonder how you made it so far- what magic got you through. When you squint your eyes and you just can't figure it out- I hope that when that happens, we can just remember that first promise we made to each other, that secret promise in the dark that night, when we're struggling so hard, pulling our own direction as far as we can pull, when the hammer is just beyond my reach and I'm still stretching, i hope we can remember just to try and be good to each other, nothing more- then i think we'll make it after all.