How does that make me feel? Excited. A little scared. I just picked up Nick Hornby's How to Be Good and am of course now all worried about my marriage turning into that marriage rather than the marriage I fantasize having:

Zany adventures. Him and me against the world. Wickedly funny children who are too smart for their own good. Adorable little house with a kitchen full of friends. A good, good life that I appreciate and adore. A pervasive fondness and respect for one another that survives years of difficult times and changing dreams.

I want people to look at us, when we're old, and say: "She's still in love with him after all these years."

I want to be somebody's role model couple, like my friends L. and J. were to me.

Is it easy enough to make it happen that way? To keep our eyes on the ball and shape a marriage that turns out the way we want it to, rather than neglecting it and letting it slip into something pathetic and hopeless? If we try, marriage is going to be beautiful.

Right?