I thought getting married would save me. I never felt like I belonged—especially in my family. My parents fought all the time and eventually divorced, which condemned us in our conservative Christian community. I was also an outspoken feminist, which didn’t make me many friends or get me many dates, and my undiagnosed anxiety disorder certainly didn’t help my self-confidence or sense of well-being. I sincerely and earnestly believed that if I could convince a nice, normal guy to love and marry me, all of my problems would go away. They didn’t.

Instead, I lose my faith and end up wondering why I ever wanted to get married in the first place. Shamed by my secular grad school classmates, my favorite female authors, and even the lady at the bank, I quickly learn that as a modern-day bride at the age of 23, I made a terrible mistake. I also have sex for the first time while thinking of naked women, learn of my Pop-Pop’s other secret families via his obituary, and reluctantly serve as the dating coach for my 50-year-old mother, who I’ve inspired to find “true love” despite my own increasing uncertainties about matrimony. As my 1st wedding anniversary approaches, I’m forced to decide if I want to stay married and if so, how to reconcile my fantasy of marriage with my reality.

We all enter relationships with expectations, but what do you do when the union that’s supposed to redeem you doesn’t—specifically, what do you do when you genuinely love your life partner but still find yourself lonely and unsatisfied?

Nobody talks about what marriage is really like after the vows are said and the wedding is over. Ask any Millennial and they’ll tell you that while they’re happy to discuss how things are going with their current boyfriend or girlfriend, you never hear about what’s actually happening in relationships after couples say “I do.” Marriage is a closed door entered only by those who choose to partake in its everlasting union. Even young married couples rarely talk to each other about any doubts, fears, or regrets they have making such a permanent life commitment.

My 60,000-word memoir, I DID: A JOURNAL OF MY NEWLYWED YEAR, busts open this conversation. Modeled after the diary structure and confessional tone of Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year, I DID is a real-life rendering of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel After I Do. In addition, I DID fills the current market gap for 20 and 30-something women caught in the life stages between Katie Heaney’s Never Have I Ever: My Life (So Far) Without a Date, Jen Glantz’s Always a Bridesmaid (for Hire): Stories on Growing Up, Looking for Love, and Walking Down the Aisle for Complete Strangers, and Sascha Rothschild’s How to Get Divorced by 30: My Misguided Attempt at a Starter Marriage. No Millennial newlywed will ever find herself alone in her marriage after reading the emotional rollercoaster, from bright-eyed bride to wavering wife, I rode during my first year. I DID also provides an alternative narrative for young women, in any type of romantic relationship, who want to “find” themselves but until now, have been taught they can’t because they’re partnered.

As summarized by Madeleine Blais, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, “In I DID, the author shares the intimate journals she kept during her first year as a newlywed. Coming from a conservative Christian background in which matrimony was considered a high calling, the author faces the clash between ideals and reality on a near daily basis. Using a purposely colloquial style, she sets out to examine all of the challenges facing any newlywed couple: sex, money, careers, religion, family ties, future progeny, laundry, even the dishes. Her desire, literally and figuratively, is to be on the same page as her husband. In the process of documenting what it is like to be a young married Millennial, she channels Jane Austen, Bridget Jones, and Lena Dunham, and most of all, Jocelyn, finding her own words for her unique story.”