A few days after my best friend’s wedding, I saw one of her Instagram posts. She’s on her honeymoon, paddle boarding with her best friend, crazy excited about the adventures her new life will bring. If there was ever a perfect couple, it’s these two.

But all I could feel was the sharp stab of jealousy. 

What was that even like? Newlyweds, enjoying the first few days of being one, the first few days under the same roof, the first few days in bliss. Everything is new and exciting. Everything is an adventure.

Yet there I was, laying on the unmade bed, trying to drown out both my screaming toddler and the overwhelming longing to go back to “those days.” I felt so tired, so defeated, so worn down. My husband was in the kitchen cooking dinner but I missed him because after weeks of chaos due to moving and traveling, the stress had slowly built up a rift between us and we simply hadn’t been connecting.

It’s been three and a half years of marriage for us.

Three moves, two kids, and the Marine Corps controlling it all every step of the way. There was no honeymoon–we had a single night in a local hotel and 24 hours after we said “I do” he had to go back to the barracks for two days until the check out process was completed and he could move in with me. Our son was born three weeks after our first anniversary and our daughter, less than two years later. Until last November, we had been apart half of our marriage. Hardly a romantic fairy tale thus far.

How I wish we could be like my best friend and her brand new husband. How I wish we could get away. How I wish we still felt like they do, and what I would give to feel that excitement again…

I felt a lot better once my husband was done cooking dinner and I had food in my belly, but the longing and the jealousy stuck. Two days later, my husband and I walked two hours from our tiny apartment to downtown Wilmington and I explained to him how I had been feeling.

I realized two things:

First, we really need to get away. Sure, we didn’t need a honeymoon to have a successful marriage but we have never gotten away together, just the two of us. That would be pretty cool.

Second, it’s true–we are not like them. We’re no longer newlyweds and the novelty is gone. The days of going to Denny’s for dirt cheap lava cake in the middle of the night are over (thanks kids!) and we don’t dance in the kitchen very often anymore; spontaneity often takes a back burner to practicality. If Nicholas Sparks tried to write his next novel about us it might even be rather dull.

Yet, there’s something so beautiful about the stage of life we find ourselves in.

There’s something so messy about juggling two hungry kids and an empty fridge in a tiny kitchen with lopsided cabinets and a dishwasher that’s falling out of the wall.

There’s something so simple about making omelets for dinner out of fresh eggs from a church friend and deli meat that was buy 2 get 3 free at the supermarket.

There’s something so real about sitting at the dining room table under the harsh overhead light with lukewarm coffee in an attempt to focus on creating a budget to get through the month.

There’s something so quiet about lying on a makeshift blanket rug in the middle of the floor at the end of a long day and ignoring the toddler shooting the window with a Nerf gun and the baby wriggling her little limbs like her life depends on it.

There’s something so relieving about finally getting both kids to sleep and curling up on the sofa with a bowl of ice cream and a cup of hot tea and our favorite TV show.

Finally, there’s something so familiar about climbing into bed with a man who knows me completely and who is in every way my other half.

There’s no novelty–I know him. I know all the dirty, broken, and refined-by-fire parts. There’s no honeymoon–we’re deep into the trenches of parenting and real life now. There’s no paddle boarding (again, kidddsssss!) and our most spontaneous adventures include walking four hours with a double stroller to get tacos by the river.

But those were darn good tacos, and I’ll take it. I’ll take every second of the nitty-gritty, familiar, often-we’re-so-tired-we-flop-into-bed-and-do-nothing-but-crash lives that three and a half years into marriage is now our every day.

No, we’re not like my newlywed best friend and her husband. We’re not at all like them! We have two kids and marriage is not new and we are not new to each other and we’re not them so we are not even comparable. Sometimes, yes, I still wish we could be honeymooning. Who doesn’t want to live in luxury for a week while their sole priority is to enjoy their spouse? I would certainly take that opportunity should it be presented.

I would never, ever trade it for this life though.

As marriages grow, they change. They mature. We’re not meant to honeymoon forever.

But there is no rule that says once the honeymoon is over that the adventures cease. Our adventures might be found in different, more simple places, but we adventure nevertheless. We are the best kind of best friends–the ones tested by time and real life and crying kids.

In three and a half years, my newlywed best friend might be here too. Or she might be somewhere completely different. We all write our own stories, and I’m not jealous anymore.

Our story is perfect for us.