AN OPEN LETTER TO LILY AND MARSHALL

Dear Lilly and Marshall,

As Ted said at your wedding, “even after 10 years of being together you still couldn’t spend one night away from each other.” And if that’s not true love, I don’t know what is. I was about to write this letter to both of you separately but then I realized, that there is nothing separate when it comes to you two. Your friends might complain that after all these years you have morphed into an amorphous blob, but this blob has the most beautiful love story. Marshmallow and Lilypad, as you call each other, you have been #relationshipgoals since the first time you laid eyes on each other on your first day at Wesleyan. Lilly needed help to fix her stereo, but instead you two were fixed for life.

 

 In your long journey of 9 years when we first met and over the next 9 years, we saw your love story go through every chapter of life. From your sweet little engagement in Ted’s kitchen to the birth of little Marvin Wait-for-it Erikson to both of you slowly but ultimately fulfilling your dreams. In your love story, you never needed any big romantic gestures, it was the small things that you do for each other that showed us the deep bond you have with each other. Like Lilly’s obsession with Marshall’s calves in shorts, or marshall’s adorable little night-night songs for Lilly. You have weird but adorable long-standing traditions – recounting what you had for lunch and saying I Love You to each other at lunchtimes, always picking each other up at the airport and always coming back from out of town with a beer 6-pack and rewatching The Predator every Valentine’s Day. You have had some bomb Halloween costumes, The Sonny and (Giant Marshall) Cher, or the Pirate and the Parrot. And after all this love, you still have plenty left to give. You have never left your friends behind. Their problems may have to be 8 or above on your scale, but you will always meddle…..I mean ‘help’ them.

 

But everything aside, you still showed us what real relationships look like. you went through ups and downs. When Lilly broke up with you Marshall to go to San Francisco to pursue her art dreams (damn you San Fran!), along with both of you, she broke all our hearts too. But she came back because of course, she had too. And who brought her back but Barney Stinson! When the writer of The Playbook himself believes that you’re soulmates, what more could you need? You both have stood with and by each other through thick and thin. Lilly, you put your dreams on hold so Marshall could achieve his, and Marshall put his judgeship on hold, so you could fulfill your dream of Italy. All the times Marshall strayed away from his true self you brought him back and even when Lilly’s debt put a wrench in your life plans, Marshall, you gladly took it on. Lilly stood by you like a rock when you lost your dad, while made sure to bring her closer to her own estranged father. You supported each other when you were struggling to get pregnant and I’ll never forget the joy on Marshall’s face when Lilly told him she’s pregnant.

Ted once said that real love is not complicated or dramatic, it’s simple, it’s easy it’s comfortable, like yours. Sometimes too comfortable. I mean, your secret code word for sex – Chimichanga, not that secret guys. And who could forget “Marshpillow” and “Marshpillow 2.0”, Lilly’s makeshift body pillow-Marshall for whenever they were away from each other. But it is a testament to your relationship that even after a decade you still have this thirst for each other, you are still having, as your friends say, crazy animal sex. After so long, when you can literally read each other’s minds, Marshall still cannot fantasize about another woman, at least not until Lilly has died in the fantasy and appropriate amount of time has passed! And so what if in Marshall’s List there’s only one name. That name is Lilly Aldrin and that list is his marriage license.

As a doe-eyed teenager when I first met you, your love story and marriage was all I wanted. I still do. To meet and fall in love and spend the rest of our lives with them, what more can you ask from the universe. You showed us that passion and love don’t have to end or fade with time, that if you wish you can be young, immature and terrible at throwing dinner parties like adults, no matter how old you get. you can hang out at bars with your baby, you can live in the city, you can turn to choose your child’s godparent into a game show. You can be an adult however you like to be when you have someone to live and share your happiness with. You taught me that to be in love does not mean to forget yourself, that if you have the right person they won’t let you do that.

 

So, thank you Lilypad and Marshmallow, thank you for giving us one of the greatest and most beautiful yet the simplest love story to look up to.