She is robed in strength and dignity; she smiles at the future.

It's been almost a month since I last posted and an almost comically large quantity of things have changed in my life since.

Disclaimer: This is a somewhat ridiculous post about marriage. Not for those who can't stomach the sickeningly sweet.

A week before I left for Israel, Gab and Ferron and I lounged on the hardwood floor of their apartment, sunlight filtering through the windows in bars that bisected and trisected our lazy bodies, warming us in selective stripes which made me keep taking off and putting back on my cardigan.

"I can't see any reason for getting married," said Gab. I expressed some sort of tepid agreement, mildly acknowledging that I had enjoyed some weddings - they were just not something for me. It seemed like a waste. Of money, of time. Having a huge expensive party for myself? It seemed like it would be lovely and thrilling but also embarrassing and as if it might accidentally tread into the valley of the selfish.

Then, little more than a week later, I found myself chewing my lip with great concentration, willing tears to roll back within me, as my new brother-in-law sang to my elder sister at their wedding. A friend who I had made that day - a brown-eyed bespectacled henna artist with a laugh that hit me tenderly right between my ribs - whispered a translation in my ear.

Eishes chayil is a song from the Book of Proverbs that describes what a virtuous woman should be like. From that description, one might expect something painfully outdated and possibly offensive.

But it is the most beautiful song I have ever heard in my barely-over-two-decades life.

And watching my sister leaning her face on her palm as she listened to my brother-in-law sing to her gave me more happiness than anything I have felt to date. This is no exaggeration.

Anything that can give someone that degree of happiness, completely inadvertently, cannot be anything but good.

And I decided then that marriage is totally a party that I can get behind.