[Fiction] The Stranger I Married | @vidyabanjan Original

---

I grew up as any normal girl, reading the Cinderella, Snow White stories where there is always a Prince charmer, who is charming the lady love. Grew up with the conceptual truth that everybody needs to get married and have children. A universal truth, strange though.
Time came for me to get married, the event every girl awaits, looking forward to see what this is all about, a bed of only roses or something additional to it. My Prince charmer, arrived one day, not on a horse though, but through the community matrimony website. After all the rituals of coffee, q&a, family agreement, I got married to the so called my Prince charming, a total stranger. That's how arranged marriages work.

Time flew by, the stranger and I adjusted to each other, shared all that was meant to be shared, accepted each other wholly, lots of happy memories were made along with the ups and downs. Baby arrived after two years. The best moment of my life was to see the stranger hold our baby. Time flew and flew, without me realizing that today it was 13th year of being together. Roger that!! I was amazed too.

I took a cup of coffee, and sat on the sofa in the silence of my or rather our home. Stranger had left for office and the little boy to school. As I revisit the years I spent with the stranger, making an account of all good and bad days we had together, something strikes me. I keep aside the dinner dates, vacation dates, coffee dates, all the filmy ones aside, to see what is that I gained out of all these 13 years and oh oh oh I go in my heart, as I am mesmerized with what this stranger had given me.

I always thought love was about pampering each other, holding hands, gifting each other, all that stuff I had picked up watching the movies and the serials. But here at this moment of time, I understand love better. The stranger had taught me love was not only about taking care of each other, it was a combination of mutual trust, acceptance of each other's families along with other relationships that come with it, picking each other when you fall, letting go each other when required, a required space to be given, telling a no when necessary and above all an undying respect of each other. He made me believe and behaved like we were a team, stepping into other’s shoes when required.

I read a relationship quote which states, “The best relationship is the one in which, at the end of the day, you are a better version of yourself.” And here I am, a better wife and mother, better daughter and daughter in law, better sister and sister in law, a better friend and best friend, managing work home in a better way and overall a better person, all because the stranger I married, somewhere contributed to this better half.

And a smile hovers all over my face realizing that the stranger I married is no more a stranger, he was my team, my super hero, a part of my strength, a person who kept me grounded, and finally in Italian, I would say my “Spina Dorsale” (back bone). God bless, touch wood. Now finishing off my daily chores, looking forward for the evening when I celebrate my happy anniversary with my family I love and the stranger I married.

---

Will you consider to upvote & follow me @vidyabanjan?

---