To me..

To them, marriage is not glue, but cement.
Hard and cumbersome. Unrelenting. Like a shackle.

To them, love is "I payed the bills." "My day was fine. How was yours?"

To them, family is Inferno: coarse comedy with a side of fries. Conflicting half-hearts. Satan has three heads.

To them, life is suede. But what about me?

To me, marriage is not glue, but a tube through which two solutions mingle in open hearts, actively striving for equilibrium.

To me, love is "How was you're day?" "I brought you you're favorite tea c: surprise!"
When one side lacks, the other fills it up.

To me, family is Paradiso, where warmth and love mingle to form a blanket of support. Where compromise is key, and complacency, the enemy. Where it's totally OK to spill spaghetti sauce on the tablecloth.

To me, life is a prism, not a prison. The world is a place of beauty and pain, but the home is what you make it.

-Adeline Boswell 2015