It was a popular opinion for awhile that this day wasn't ever going to come.
Sure, it was going to be April 4, 2017, at some point, but for at least a year the prognosis wasn't as clear when it came to whether Beyoncé and Jay Z would also be celebrating their ninth wedding anniversary today.
Because of...you know. The turmoil.
Yet as possible as a breakup seemed at one point, the opposite feels true now. Not only are they marking nine years of marriage today—the fourth day of the fourth month—but they're also expecting twins, two little siblings at once for Blue Ivy Carter.
Mr. and Mrs. Shawn Carter have also displayed an impressive level of togetherness since their marriage cracked open just enough for people to get a glimpse of the issues inside, deepening the mystery that is their enduring bond and leaving everyone questioning just how bad it got...if it even got bad at all.
But it only makes sense that, come what may, lemons or Lemonade, they're in on it together.
At this point, Bey and Jay have been fueling each other's myth for almost two decades. Yet just as they've joined forces as a larger-than-life power couple who've got the world at their feet and who provided the salve for a burned nation with their pregnancy announcement, so too do they serve as each other's most humanizing foil.
Vulnerability, passion, anger and love are hallmarks of the human, after all, and though Beyoncé and Jay Z have been building each other up for the past 17 years, the simple act of loving each other cuts them right back down to size.
To hurt and then try to heal, what could be more ordinary?
Then, of course, they emerge from their gilded love nest and basically do anything at all and—poof!—there's nothing ordinary about them. And yet they're impossibly normal at the same time.
Inevitably what happens is, they engage in the most normal pursuits, from family vacations to fights to nights out with friends, only heightened to the ultimate celebrity degree, rendering their lives unrecognizable.
For instance:
Taking in a Knicks game: They sit courtside.
Catching a Nets game: Jay Z used to own a piece of the team.
Watching football games: Bey headlines the halftime show.
Hanging out with friends: The friends are Barack and Michelle Obama.
Sex and devotion, marriage and motherhood, insecurity and depression: Beyoncé takes it all in, hits the studio and drops her self-titled album by surprise on iTunes, popularizing a whole new strategy in the music business.
Fighting: It happens after the Met Gala and turns into the biggest scandal of the year.
Making up: The tortuous, soul-searching process fuels a Grammy-winning, genre-busting album.
Family vacations: They take place on yachts or in villas with 20-foot-high ceilings that look as if they don't need air conditioning because a natural breeze follows the Carter family everywhere they go.
Family dance parties: They happen on stage.
Teaching their child responsibility: The sparkly kitty purse Blue Ivy took to the Grammys cost $2,490.
Going to the movies: The mommy-and-me Gucci looks Bey and Blue sported at the Beauty & the Beast premiere cost $26,000 and $2,100, respectively.
Taking Blue Ivy to a sleepover: It's at Gwyneth Paltrow's house.
Maintaining an Instagram account: Bey's pregnancy announcement shatters the record for most likes within hours.
Taking maternity leave: Well, she'll headline Coachella next year.
In conclusion, there's basically nothing that Beyoncé and Jay Z do, from trips to Target to joint tours, that isn't tinged with a touch of the surreal, as if they're starring in their own musical.
Through her songs and calculated use of social media and visual imagery, Beyoncé has recently communicated all sorts of things about herself and her marriage that, nine years ago—when she and Jay Z danced the night away on a rooftop in Tribeca, far from prying eyes, to celebrate their nuptials—would have seemed impossible, to her and the 'Hive.
And yet we still don't know exactly what we're watching.
What we do know is that Beyoncé and Jay Z successfully managed to cloak their life in secrecy, but millions of fans invested in their journey anyway—because it's not quite like any other celebrity relationship, and because it's surviving despite its imperfections, just like every relationship.