More and more

This week on Facebook people are posting pics of themselves and their significant others.  They are also telling how long they have been together.  I changed my profile pic to an old one taken of David and me in 1992, the year we began dating.  In July we will celebrate 18 years together; but in April we will celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary.  Both sound like a really long time, and when I look at that pic I remember distinctly the night it was taken.  It was my 23rd birthday, and David, April and Scott had planned a huge surprise party for me.  That was the best birthday party I ever had.

I keep looking at that photo.  For some reason I'm intrigued about that moment being captured before all these other things happened.  That was before we bicycled the Yucatan Peninsula for a week.  Before we rode our bikes from San Antonio to Corpus Christi.  We crossed into Mexico on foot and backpacked the eastern-half of that country for two months.  We had not yet stood in Times Square on New Year's Eve, nor driven across the US to move to Seattle, a place we had never before visited.  We quickly found jobs and a cool apartment, and lived there for seven months.  That pic was taken before we went back to college and graduated; before we formed NativeDave.com; before we lived in a camper on the beach in Florida for a year.  That was before we spent many weekends camping on the beach on N. Padre Island, dreaming about someday living there.  At the time that pic was taken, we had not yet discussed marriage or children.  It would be almost nine years before we would tie the knot, and a whopping FIFTEEN before our little girl would be born.  (Dang!) 

Before that pic was taken, however, we had developed a great friendship over five years.  We had taken vacations together, had spent most every weekend together with our friends.  Although we had only been together romantically a few months, we were not strangers.  Not long after celebrating one year together we began living together.  We had fallen in love and were committed to sharing our journey.

Our journey has taken us many places over the years.  There have been thrilling joys and agonizing sorrows -- but overwhelmingly, we have had mostly joys.  I feel fortunate and grateful, and I'm looking forward to many more years, many more joys, many more adventures on this shared journey.

I love you, David.  More and more every day...