(Psst. If you’re a follower of mine on Twitter, I’ll be posting “sneak peaks” of The House for you to see.)

This blog isn’t a place where I discuss my marriage often. Of course, you all know I’m married, as I mention it in passing. I talk about Husband (aka Josh) here and there, but with very little detail, which is mostly to respect his privacy. Though I don’t write of it often, I adore being married. Yes, it has been less than a year, but it is a great feeling … Which I’m sure other married women understand.

As most of you already know, I’m only twenty. (Hey, I’ll be twenty-one in a little over six months–the first of December. Who wants to buy me a drink?) Husband is twenty-two (though he’ll be twenty-three on the last day of the year), so obviously, we’re both very young. We have so much left to learn in life; thankfully, we’re able to do the majority of that learning together. Marrying young can be terrifying–you wonder (very rarely) if it was the right thing. Then, of course, you see your husband smile, and you realize that it would be difficult to live without that smile. Even through the disagreements (luckily, ours have been minor) it’s impossible to not love that person. Sure, sometimes you may not like them so much, but that love is always there.

Husband and I are at a place in our marriage that is comfortable. I believe a lot of that has to do with us living together an entire year before our marriage. Before moving in together, we dated for only about eight months, and I was still slightly nervous around him. Before we started dating, we were almost secret best friends–we rarely spent time together alone, and sometimes we’d go weeks or months without speaking, but we knew we loved each other. It was an odd relationship, and it’s hard to explain unless you were there to see it. We even had a secret online journal in which we wrote letters to each other (even before we became best friends). (If you’d like, I may go through and find a few for you to see. Even now, when I go through and read it, I can see a love blooming–though some of the letters are heartbreaking.)

Now, there are no secrets–that mystery has gone–but there is that comfort. We know each other. We know the faults–and between the both of us, we probably have many. There are things about him that drive me crazy (not in a good way), and I’m sure it’s mutual. However, we love each other despite the faults. We love each other because of the faults. He tends to tell me that, where he is weak, I am strong (and vice versa), so we each fill in the cracks creating a whole piece.

Husband and I are completely opposite people. Where he is free-spirited, I am more grounded. I tend to be more conservative in my nature (though I agree more liberally in my political views), and he is more “go with the flow.” Husband is definitely “street smart” and he knows so many facts about everything that exists; I am more “by the book,” I suppose. Husband thinks outside the box; it’s harder for me to do so, though I try. It all balances out.

In a few weeks, we’ll have been married for a year. When you think about it, a year is so small when compared to what we’re going on–fifty, sixty, maybe even seventy years or more. It’s a step, though. It’s a step toward something greater–a friendship that is stronger than any before; a marriage that is long-lasting; a love that cannot be defined by the books.

But it’ll take years. Building blocks. One year at a time. Luckily, though, we are able to do it together.