My husband and I took a mini vacation this past weekend. We headed to a city where I used to live, a long time ago, in what seems like another lifetime. As we were trying to decide on a restaurant one night, I remembered a place I used to walk to from my apartment, and it was actually still there, so we gave it a shot.
During dinner, I said, “Just think, the last time I was in this place, I didn’t even know you existed.”
My husband joked that I was probably happier back then, and I rolled my eyes. It is strange to even think about my life without him. I wouldn’t want to know what it would be like. I count meeting him as one of the greatest blessings of my life, and I’m not just saying that to be mushy. It’s true.
After dinner, I asked him to pull into the apartment complex where I used to live. It’s a massive complex, sprawling with row after row of multi-story buildings, twisting and turning with winding streets, but even in the dark, I tried to find my way back to an old home. I peered out the window, navigating by memory: “Turn right here…I think…keep going…turn here…then here…”
But it didn’t seem like we were finding where I used to live. Maybe it had just been too long ago.
Just when I thought I must have forgotten where I used to live, we made one more turn, and there it was, that familiar feeling of a once-upon-a-time home. I smiled and said, “Look!” I pointed up to a second floor balcony. Before I met my husband, before I even knew he was on the planet, and almost 20 years ago, I used to park in front of that building, walk up those steps, and unlock that door.
I had told my husband about riding out a hurricane in my apartment once, and I pointed to the little pond across the street from my old apartment. “That’s the pond, the one where the wind picked up the water in sheets that I told you about, remember?” He nodded, and I pointed out other little details, mostly meaningless but tripping my memories anyway: the sidewalk where I saw a very dedicated woman walking every single morning, without fail; the building where I used to lug my laundry basket to wash my clothes; the screened-in porch where I sat with my cats, both of them now long gone, but never forgotten; the still- empty patch of grass where a tree toppled during a storm as I watched.
I thought he might think all of it a bit silly, but he told me he liked being able to see these places with me, things I have talked about, bits of my past, and now he was right there with me. I felt so nostalgic and sentimental and reflective. I pictured the 20-years-ago me, walking across that parking lot, strolling along that pond, not knowing yet that someday, many years from then, I would be sitting in a car in this same spot, with someone I can’t imagine my life without.
Back at our hotel room, I woke up in the middle of the night, the room still dark, and felt my husband’s hand on my side as he reached for me. I had chosen the hotel, apparently just a bit too close to the airport, because it sounded like jets were taking off right outside our window and possibly getting ready to join us in bed. I rolled over and snuggled close to him, and we joked about the peaceful, soothing roar of plane engines lulling us to sleep, and he teased me about selecting that hotel, out of all the hotels in the city.
I was glad we were awake, though. We held onto each other, laughing each time another plane rumbled by. Add it to the many, many memories we have created together, just happy to be together, even with a loud airport keeping us up.
My husband was very wrong about one thing, though. I wasn’t happier all those years ago, sitting in that same restaurant, before I met him. I wasn’t unhappy back then, either. I have never been one of those people waiting impatiently to get married, unable to stand being alone, feeling incomplete. I have moved from place to place, explored, finding happiness both with a select few other people and with just myself.
Maybe that’s why, when he and I finally met, we knew before long that we were home together. We don’t need each other. But we want each other. We just fit together, like puzzle pieces. I still like adventures and exploring, but I want to do both of those with him at my side now.
Twenty more years from now, I want to be able to drive somewhere, point out where we did this, did that, ask “Remember when…?” and laugh about the all-nighter we pulled because the airplanes wouldn’t let us sleep at the hotel I picked out. Twenty years from now, I still want him at my side through it all. Twenty years from now, so much more will have changed, except for one thing that never will: he will always be my life’s love and my soul’s heart. And of all the memories of my life, the very best will be with him.
Sweat & Sparkle 