anniversary

It's that time of year again in Northeast Ohio. For those of you not currently living in the Buckeye state... it's fall here. It's jeans & jacket weather. Chilli (the food not the climate) weather. Play all day outside, jump in the leaves kind of weather. It's a beautiful time of year when the colors start to change, the temperature drops, football season begins, and N and I celebrate our anniversary. No, not our wedding anniversary, (we got married in the spring), but the annivesary of the beginning of our relationship...the very beginning.

Those of you who have ever been in any kind of serious relationship, know exactly what I'm talking about. The Beginning. The amazing time in every relationship when your heart races just thinking about the other person, when you could spend hours talking about nothing... i'm sure you all know what I'm talking about. N and I don't have a day of the month to mark the beginning, (I'm sure there was one, we just don't remember what it is). We know it happened sometime in the fall when he was 15 and I was 16. So instead of remebering a specific date, we remember the weather.... and this was it. The leaves were changing, the air was cool, and we were in love. Nine years, and two kids later, we are still in love. This time of year, this weather, you can just feel it in the air. I'm sure we will feel it every fall for the rest of our lives. Every time the seasons change from summer to autumn, we will look back and remember the beginning.

I just discovered the song "Hey There Delilah" (when you had it on your page C.). Yeah, yeah, I know that they play it on the radio like a billion times a day, but between Baby Einstein CD's and Talk Radio, I somehow missed it. Anyway, wow, if I had to pick a theme song to describe our "beginning" that would be it. I'm sure those of you who were there can remember... "two more years and we'll be done with school, N was gonna pay the bills with his guitar, we'd have it good, he'd write every song to me and more in love with him i'd fall..." and so on and so on. Ya know, our life didn't end up exactly like that, but that's ok with me. There's a line in that song that says "we'll have the life we know we should" and that's what we've got. N might not pay the bills with his guitar, but he still pays them nontheless. When we were 15 he promised to take care of me, and he does, better than I ever could of imagined as a teenage girl. Everytime he plays his guitar in the living room or on the worship team, I remember that tenth grade boy who was gonna make it big. I love those memories, but I wouldn't trade what I have now for anything.

There was this moment not too long ago, as the fall weather was just moving in... both kids were in bed, I was folding laundry in the living room and N was sitting on the couch playing his guitar...that was the moment...that was all there was to it...but it was perfect. The kind of perfect moment when you realize that you are truly happy. Not that life is perfect, it isn't, it's hard, and with two toddlers, it's downright terrifying sometimes, but I believe that in the midst of this overwhelming, crazy life, God gives us simple moments like that one, simple gifts like Ohio in the fall, simple memories to cherish. Happy anniversary N-darlin'.