Yesterday was a special day. Valentine's Day? That's part of it, but not all of it. Twenty-one years ago, yesterday, I took a pretty big step. A HUGE step. As it turns out, the very best step I've ever dared take. I bought a card. Not just any card, but a Valentine's Day card. And then I wrote it in. Not just random words, but the words. And then I gave it to a girl. Not just any girl, but THE ONE kind of girl.
So, twenty-one years ago means that the adventure I began with my bride is now officially old enough to drink. Not that it needs to or wants to, just that it can if it needs or wants to. It also means that we have more history with each other than many people have even been alive. Wow...that's a staggering thought, right there.
What I love about us is that we have our thing down pretty well. We know each other and us and our own unique code pretty well. Sometimes more than we know ourselves. I know when she's asleep and when she's having a hard time going to sleep. I know when she's super happy and not-so-super happy. I know when it's me and when it's not me (and I'm not just talking about the bad stuff here). I know how to make her laugh and I know how to make her cry. When I'm freaking out, she's calm and sometimes, those tables turn. I know that no one gets Columbia House or "biology" or "2" like we do. I love that we pray, laugh, read and talk in bed, sometimes almost simultaneously.
Most of all, I love that we can expect the expected and the unexpected all at the same time...and all of it still excites me after these twenty-one years of love, life, laughter, kids, broken cars and all the rest. I love—us. The us we were, the us we are and, most definitely, the us we will become.
Twenty-one years is a long time and but a grain in the hourglass of our lives. And I couldn't be happier about any step, card or words before or since.
