Dear Lady,

You are amazing!
(It just needed to be said)

.a Boy

Dear Lady,

Happiest of happy Thanksgiving!
For the first time in a very long time I am celebrating this holiday with a rather clear idea of what the future holds and where we're going (of course I'm speaking career-wise). I won't say I don't still struggle from time-to-time with a longing for my voyages and adventures, but for the first time I have a very clear goal in my head and it is helping me keep my focus.
I love this rural country life you've brought me back to. I have always wanted to see the world, but I have also always wanted to just build myself into a community and build-up that community in turn. I want to know and love my neighbors. I want us to work together and love one another. I want to be intimately acquainted with the earth, my surroundings, and my own physical limitations.
I wake up in the morning much easier now than I had lately and I think it's because I don't dread myself and my indecision anymore. I wake up to write about our country life. Or to study country things. Or to watch country videos. I am inspired by them. Uplifted by them. And I am anxious to work alongside my best friend, Farmer Mur (Farmurmur?)!
On this day of Thanksgiving I am thankful for our sweet little home. I am thankful for the country around us. I am thankful for the chickens we tend to each day. I am thankful for our children and for watching them run and play in our backyard. I am thankful for our Savior, Jesus Christ, and the way the gospel has led me so very far down this road to being the person I want to be. I am thankful for a Heavenly Father who helped strengthen His son along this path that has blessed so many of us.
And I am thankful for you—my best friend, my dear companion, and my whole world. Thank you for believing in me and in us. Thank you for patience and love. Thank you for hard work and resilience. Thank you for your example of charity and understanding. And thank you for farming with me (this is an advanced thank you since we don't actually do this yet :) Thank you for another year with you. It's been a difficult one, but your colors have shown through it: beautiful and resplendent.
Happy Thanksgiving to the most amazing girl I ever met.
I love you.

.Patrick

Boy,

It was a pleasant surprise to find a note from you the other day.

I think it's funny that you look forward to 6:10 so much. It's my least favorite part of the day.  Although, if I'm being honest, I really do appreciate the morning once I'm showered and aware of my being and surroundings.  In fact, if those circumstances are met, I'd venture to say that morning actually becomes a magical time and maybe even the time I love most. Weird, huh?  Well, maybe not weird for you, but definitely for me. 

I don't mind your nighttime lethargy. I think it's cute. It's one of your quirks and I love all of your quirks. I have my own set and I hope for patience in their presence, so how could I offer you anything but the same?  

I am excited to farm. Also, I think we should record our ideas and plans in a mutual spot. I think our ideas and plans would seem more concrete to me.  I think we could be more organized and effective as a team. 

I really appreciate your humility in being able to speak out loud when you feel you were wrong or when you need forgiveness. It is such a vulnerable and beautiful position to take. I learn from your example daily and I thank you for it. 

Big L

Dear Lady,

I'll be honest—I hate the fact that I get so tired in the evening. Like literally hate it.
Now, this doesn't mean I dislike mornings. I love the quiet of the morning. I'm downstairs right now sitting beside the fire that I just re-stoked and I'm loving it. What a beautiful thing it was to bring this wood stove into our lives.
Anyway, back to night time: I hate the way I get so sleepy as soon as the kids are in bed. I think I hate it so much because I think it gives off the impression that I'm not excited to be awake and alone with you at last. I feel like it gives you the impression that I'm bored and I just feel like it's insulting to you when I nod off—and I hate that idea. I guess I feel like you deserve a friend who's energetic and dynamic in the evenings with you and I want so badly to be that person—then I fall asleep.
I'm sorry for that.
I want you to know how much I do love you. How much I do love being alone with you in the evening. Even if all that's happening is me watching you reading articles on your phone, I love it (though I wish I was providing excitement enough that we didn't need to be on our screens in the evening).
From the moment we met I've wanted nothing more than time with you. I love time with you. I spent the better part of a decade frustrated in my career pursuits in part because I needed something that provided what I felt was adequate time with you. In reality there's no such thing as adequate time with you (thank you eternity) which is why I am excited about the idea of farming. There's a lot I like about it, but most important to me is how it brings the two of us together. I hope you're excited about it too. I think we can create a beautiful farm!
I'll be seeing you in about an hour when I come to wake you up at 6:10. I look forward to that time everyday. You're my whole world, and I hope you always know that.

.a boy

Boy,

The only blog I check more than my own is this one, because I treasure your writing more than the possibility that some stranger updated my personal blog. Anyway, if a post mysteriously appeared over there, it would be creepy. Awesome, but still creepy. 

Anyway, what's there to say?  I love you. I love our life together. I love the idea of farming with you. I love how you light your oil lamp every night and read to the kids. I love how you just laugh at my weird and stupid quirks. I love how accepting you are of both my simple and complicated ideas. Let's just be in love forever.  

From Lady

Dear Boy,

I never want to burden you more than you are already burdened and I don't often want to talk about my problems because in knowing them your inclination is always to want to solve them. Today, though I need to let you in because I have been carrying this for too long on my own. I don't want you to solve it or worry about it, I just want you to understand a little. 

You know how I like religious books?  It's because I see value in religion and at the same time I rail against dogma and legalism and sometimes it feels that religion is shrouded in these two. I look in these religious books for other people's experiences of making it work for them and I also look to them to validate my own feeling... to not feel so alone, but I'm starting to feel like I've exhausted my drive for other people's experiences with religion.  I have my own and that has been exhausting enough.  I'm also finally at a place where I feel confident in myself and God enough to accept where and what I am. 

I love the Church because it is my home. I love the people, I love serving them, I love the spirit in preparing and teaching a lesson, I love the truths that I find in Mormonism, I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but I've been on a long journey with my faith and it has slowly morphed over the past many years and I suppose everyone's faith does this, but the cumulative effect of my slow transition has been a dramatic shift in the way I view the world and God and the Church.  Sometimes that causes me a lot of mental anguish.  

Most church members feel spiritually strengthened at church. There are many weeks that I do, but church can be emotionally draining and painful to me. I used to view the world as black and white, and everything I would hear at church would confirm my own views nearly 100%. That kind of spiritual validation can be very strengthening. Instead, now when I attend church I find that only about 40-50% of what is taught is validating to me, leading to the opposite, a lot of invalidation and feelings of isolation.  The experience is especially acute when I have to teach things that I don't completely believe in. This cognitive dissonance is painful. Some Sundays I feel like I am disingenuous, and representing myself as something that I'm not. Sometimes I am overcome by an overwhelming feeling that I don't belong with these people whom I dearly love.

I don't want to do anything different about this. I don't want to leave. I don't want to stop teaching or serving. I don't want to change anything. I want to continue in the struggle. I want to keep wrestling.  I just wanted you to know that I do struggle and it is painful.  

And I love you.  That is the easiest thing I do.

L 

Dear Boy,

I love to adventure with you. I appreciate your willingness to go anywhere or do anything with me. Even run on a treadmill. Especially watch stars during a meteor shower, walk around new places, over new bridges and lockes, through cow fields, experience farm days and hot springs and ghost towns, try new foods, observe NYC from the 80-something story during a raging snowstorm, stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls, or just cuddle under the covers (clothing optional).  I love life and I love you and I love my life with you. Thanks for these eleven years. It's been a dream. 

L

Dear Boy,

Dear Boy,

Your own happiness brings me some of my deepest happiness.  Seeing you engaged in writing this past week has been so joyful for me, even beyond the fact that I love to read your stories and thoughts. You are extraordinary.  And so is your writing. And so is your husbanding. And though you disparage it quite often, your fathering is amazing and wonderful, too.

As far as the persona of your last life goes, I don't totally buy the idea of a persona.  I think it goes with my claim that you can never be 100% kidding. I do, of course, say that in jest, that thing about jokes, but then you have to wonder if I say that in 100% jest. 

I think a persona at least in the sense that you expressed (not a persona meant to manipulate or harm others, just an innocent one) is born of a real desire or ideal and should not, therefore be discredited. I think we always have a way of being and maybe even many all at once and I don't think that's bad. And if we change our way of being for different people, I think that's expected. And if we are exploring different ways of being all the while, then good. Maybe it's just our human way of becoming ourselves. We try on different styles and sizes until we find what fits.  Or maybe we are all bigger than we ever imagined and that's why it seems we change our minds with the wind.  Walt Whitman wrote, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes."  I guess that is to say, don't fit yourself in any boxes, dear boy. 

If you wax poetic or artsy, I love you.   When your only dream is to tie up your boots and strap on your pack, I still love you.  When you want to stay home and till up the earth and tend to livestock, I love you.  There is goodness in you that runs much deeper than any of that and it shines through all of it.

Dear Lady,

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I've been doing a lot of writing over the course of the last week or so—and it's been awesome! I've felt much better about this structure of storytelling vs. the previous incarnation of my blog that involved rather errant accounts of my daily activities (kind of the equivalent of the types of emails I was complaining about yesterday). I was glad to hear that you preferred this new format to the old as well. I don't know . . . Maybe it shouldn't as much as it does, but your opinion kind of means the world to me. I could win all the writing awards there are (not to say that I would) and still be left unfulfilled if what I'd written wasn't rated "Awesome" by you. I think that was one of the reasons walking away from film was so easy.
Anyway, I wanted to mention writing again because I had touched upon it recently in one of my letters to you. In that letter I went on at length about my loss of love for writing. Now here I am writing at length. That's quite the flip-flop, yes?
No, actually. I've been thinking about this a lot and while I've been writing with great zeal over the past ten days it has not been a reawakening of the passion I spoke of in that previous letter. In that letter I was making reference to strictly creative writing. Fiction writing. Flowery prose and poetry. My former love of film and the fictional yarn. All of that is still absent, but I don't think I really miss it.
I had mused over it so heavily because it represented a time in my life when I knew exactly who I was as it concerned passion and career. There was a comfort in the assurance I felt then that I have been missing over the past several years. The more I thought about it, though—the more I tried to recapture it mentally—the more I realized I think it was all a yarn. I think I had loved the idea of who those things made me in the eyes of others rather than the actions themselves. Does that make sense?
Like my letters and emails and conversations would focus on the flowery things of life (once I moved on from my graphic fifth grade narrative phase), and my time with friends would focus on conversations concerning movies and their criticism, but none of these things crept into my alone time. If I were left to my own I wouldn't be thinking poetically. I wouldn't be constructing a movie in my mind. Do you know what I would be doing if left to my own devices? I'd be hiking. I'd be dreaming of travels. I'd be sitting in a tree fort dreaming of exploration. I'd be looking forward to the next scout outing.
It was really in late high school—in the midst of girls and popularity and girls—that I fully lost myself in poetry and film. Looking back it's almost like I created a persona for myself, and then fell back into that persona after my mission. Then you rescued me from it.
Don't get me wrong, I still think there is some staggering beauty in film. Sometimes it still bowls me over and I'm left disoriented and speechless. I love that. I love thinking about it. But there doesn't seem to be any part of me that truly wants to be a part of that anymore. I've tried to reawaken that love of making films and I just can't find it. I think it never really was. Maybe.
Maybe I'm just rambling again. Maybe this is just another phase. I feel good though. I still have no idea what I'll do to make a living. Maybe after all of this I will be a filmmaker. Who knows? What I do know is that I've been writing more and it feels great!

.a boy

Dear Lady,

It has been, admittedly, difficult to watch you go through this trial with your family (though admittedly less difficult than actually being you going through it). I love you so much that my heart scarcely knows what to do with it all and I hate that life is full of so many situations that I can't magically resolve for you. I suppose this is just always a part of being in love.
I am glad to hear that I have ever been of some comfort to you in this (as I typically feel rather like a helpless spectator with little impact on the event itself). I know that while you are ever patient and loving I can be ever strict and often callous, but I am working on it and it's good to know I'm making some progress.
Your mother is an amazing woman. I know my attitude and comments can often be otherwise, but I am ever indebted to her for the gift of you, and for whatever influence she may have had that allowed you to become the Lady I fell in love with. She is strong and able. She is intelligent and persistent. She is loving and faithful. She is my family.

.a boy

 

 

Dear Boy,

Yesterday, you acted more compassionately toward my mom than usual and I want you to know I appreciated it. Thank you also for your concerned prayer for her last night. It probably meant more for me than it does to her (since I alone, with God, heard it). I know my mom has very apparent foibles and weaknesses, but I love her and I see so much goodness and beauty in her also. I've learned a lot from her. I love plants and music because of her. I hear God because she taught me to listen. I seek truth because of her. Most practical skills I have came because she taught them to me.

It hurts me to watch her aching and struggling along. The best I can do is be there when I can, to listen when I can, and to offer support when I can. The worst I can do is to give in to the temptation to pass judgement and place blame. Your compassionate attitude helps me to cultivate my own ability to love, so thanks again for that.

L

Dear Lady,

Dear Lady,

Here I sit, reverent inside this van that has given up on life (there are so many instances in life that would have me wish I were born a mechanic, and yet in my heart I know that's not for me).
The owners of the establishment where it stalled out have been quite kind: I've been offered water, a seat in their air conditioned office, and a slice of ice cream cake. I've declined each offer, expressing gratitude in turn. Each item offered has been quite attractive in its own right, but I am simply enjoying this moment to sit in solitude outside.
So much of my life is wrapped up in buildings and offices—even in this position I currently hold where I can be "out and about" I am still only out and about to go from one building or office to the next. It is better than being stuck in one solitary office all day, but no match for a life spent out of doors listening to the songs of summer (and no, I'm not talking about Taylor Swift on the radio). There is a beauty in the sounds of the outdoors—even when carried about by the creations of man.
I hear birds conversing in the mess of trees around me.
The wind is whispering through the leaves (a much softer sound than the crash and crunch of the wind in autumn trees).
Cars, along the highway beside me, pass in rhythm with the occasional thundering bass of a semi rolling by.

Oh! Here's the tow truck—I'll see you in a bit.

.a boy

Dear Lady,

Dear Lady,

You were so very right to have missed the Tree of Life Saturday!
I do not know that I had ever thought about that tree so much as I did in its absence Saturday. I mean, I love the pageant and have always appreciated the technical accomplishment that it is, but I do not know that I have ever remarked the beauty of the entire production as I did this year in the absence of that tree. The very moment that I realized it would not show up I felt a kind of loss in my heart. All at once I recognized that the Tree of Life was the most beautiful part of the entire play and I missed it.
Maybe I'm being a little over dramatic about the entire thing, but as I think about it there's a small sadness I can still feel in trying to recall the image of the tree (a paltry replacement for actually seeing it). The battle scenes are appreciably well choreographed. The boat scene and the ensuing storm are fantastically well brought to life. The destruction sequence is amazing. And, of course, the arrival of the Messiah is always the most reverently impactful moment of the play. I can't help but feel, however, that the Tree of Life is the anchoring scene of beauty in the entire pageant—and it was noticeably absent this time.
You know I found myself, through the rest of the pageant, thinking about how I missed seeing that tree. It carries such power as it is raised from the stage floor and illuminated: the great cascade of water behind it truly creating a sense of visionary experience. It was nice to see the angel provide that glowing fruit to Lehi, but not nearly as inspiring as when he plucks it from an entire tree of beautifully glowing fruit.
Ah well, I suppose one could easily go on forever about what is missed and that would only serve to cause us to lose out on appreciating what is still there. I guess I didn't mean to give the impression that my pageant experience was ruined—far from it. I loved playing frisbee with Nolan before it began. I loved being there with friends. I loved the incessant terror and questions of our little girl. I loved watching the production next to my best friend. And I just loved the overall feeling of dedication, service, and love that always accompanies pageant.
Thank you for going with me each year.
Thank you for enduring mosquitos some years and rain others.
Thank you for being so cute as you fell asleep on the drive home.
Thank you for bringing me out to New York in the first place.
And thank you for missing the Tree of Life with me. I did miss it, but at least I know it will be there next year.
Have a fantastic day Love!

.a boy

Dear Lady,

Dear Lady,

I cannot imagine that life is full of moments more beautiful than this one right now.
I woke up to a golden sunrise spilling in through our window; the light catching on your autumn bouquet sitting in the window sill and glowing. The Christmas lights hanging in the window were also sparkling in the sun and dancing a bit in the breeze from the open window. I can hear the symphony song of all the birds in the countryside through that window, and the occasional lamentation of the mourning dove.

I love living in the country!

This was not the entire beauty of my 6AM moment though—as lovely as that open window was. No, there was beauty still to be added to the scene and as I rolled over in bed I was overwhelmed by it all. For there beside me, still softly sleeping, was you: my every beautiful moment.
Your back was to me, as it so often is in the morning, but your beauty had nothing to do with an external aesthetic and everything to do with an internal import built over the last eleven years. You have always been such a deep and abiding sanctuary for my soul. Your presence alone has always becalmed my mind and heart and I love laying next to you listening to your peaceful, rhythmic breathing. I love spending time laying beside you as you sleep and knowing that, no matter what the previous day imposed, and no matter what the new day may bring, for these careful moments you are completely at peace.
So that was my beautiful moment this morning and I wanted to share it with you because you were such a part of it. You are such a part of every moment of my life, present or not. I cannot imagine a life or a beautiful sunrise without you.
Good morning love. You are my beautiful sunrise.

.a Boy

Dear Lady,

Dear Lady,

Thank you for your letters.
Thank you for caring so much about me.
Thank you for shouldering so much during those couple of weeks when I was no more than a sack of potatoes.
*Speaking of sacks of potatoes . . . have you seen the sack of potatoes in our pantry?*

Writing used to come so easily to me. It used to be what I did. It was my go to. Almost my whole life. Now each word seems so labored over. Like some muscle I've not used in so long, it feels almost wearisome to write. What a strange thing.
I've been writing longer than I can ever remember doing anything. In fifth grade we had creative writing assignments and I was turning in 30-50 page books. Graphic books. My teacher stopped reading my stories they were so graphic. He just started giving me full credit because I wrote so much, but he told me he didn't want to read such graphic stories. I only remember two: one was a 1920s gangster epic, the other was an Aliens movie ripoff.
When I was in sixth or seventh grade I was introduced to Dead Poets Society and poetry. That year I asked for a collection of Robert Frost's poems and I still have it. I didn't really start dabbling in poetry myself until late into high school. I had a light blue spiral notebook with my poems in it, but I've lost it since we moved into this house. A lot of it was trite high schoolish poetry, but there was some occasional flashes of inspiration. Unfortunately I've lost it all.
Didn't mean for this to be kind of a downer of a letter, but it's where my train-of-thought went. It's not really a downer either, just my thoughts. Why did that inspiration I once felt so strongly peter out? Do you remember when you and I took that first walk around Provo? I was headed out looking for inspiration for stories as part of my film program application and I happened to find you at the park. You agreed to wander aimlessly with me as I looked for inspiration. At one point we passed a child's drawing in the grass and I made us sit down in the grass next to it as I pondered the scene. It led to one of the story synopsis' that I submitted to the program.
That's what life used to be to me. Now I spend so much time either banking or thinking about how much I don't like banking.
Sorry if the loss of that inspiration in my life has led to a similar loss in yours. You have never ceased to be an incredible light and joy in my life. Your presence has only ever grown in brilliance and happiness, and oh how I love you for it.
While I may not feel the same inspirations that I once felt, I have always felt the inspiration to joy in your company.
You are my good company.
I love you.

.me

Dear Boy,

It breaks my heart more than anything to see you so sick and to feel so helpless in the face of it. It's been a crazy week. A long week. A tiring week. A worrisome week. But the older I get and the more weeks like this that I add to the account, the more I think that's just what life is. 

Crazy. 

With bits of beauty shining through every moment.

Sometimes the only beauty I can detect comes from the hope I have in my own heart.  I have complete faith that everything will work out, that we can find goodness in every day, that there can be peace in the midst of turmoil, and that there is much to look forward to. 

I'm sorry that you have been dragged into the hardships of my parents' family.  I'm sorry for the sleepless nights, the moldy basement, the stress, the gloom, the clutter, the dirtiness, the inconvenience, the many altered plans, the disappointments, the frustration, the negativity, and an unsure future.  But thank you for sticking with me through this. It has been a very painful few months and even years to watch this happen to my dad and to my parents and sisters and feel so powerless in the face of it.  Thank you for giving me the space to relieve whatever burdens I am able to. Thank you for being there for our kids when I am not. Thank you for holding me at night and always showing me such kindness. Thank you for being gentle with my aching heart. I love you for it. You are my strength and you are in my every smile. 

I hope you receive your energy back. I hope for a miracle. I hope you will wake up in the morning and all will be as it was before last Sunday morning.  If not, I hope the doctor will find a solution and it will be just a few days more.  If not, I will see it as heaven's hand in getting you out of your job (haha) and take it as a sign that I should find work to do. I guess it's still just wait and see. 

I love you, my dear boy.

-Lady

Dear Boy, 

You are the greatest gift of my life. So thank you for showing up.

Right now, you're asleep and I'm awake. Your foot is on my leg and it feels warm and having you here next to me is comfortable.  You are just everything to me and I was laying here thinking that and thinking about how my heart feels like it's expanding whenever my thoughts land on you. And I thought I should tell you.  Thank for being so kind and loving to me. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for all the fun and exploration. Thank you for your understanding and patience. I love you.  

Howdy Lady!

I had to laugh. I couldn't help it. When I read your last letter to me here I just didn't feel that it described me at all. I've felt a lot of things through this most recent of our life's experiences, but calming or level headed were not among those things I've felt. And I'm sorry for that.
I'm sorry for the times when all I can be is bitter. I'm sorry for those times when I am less than compassionate (which is far too often). I'm sorry for those times when my comments are more destructive than constructive. Most of all I am sorry for every instance when my presence and contribution was less than supportive.
I love you. You've been incredible through all of this. Your ability to love and prove charitable has long been something I have envied and still strive for. In conversations with others you are most often spoken of as an example of who I am not—and who I would like to become.
Listening to conference this weekend was a touching experience. This has been the first time in a long while that I have come to the altar (so to speak) humbled and ready to be instructed. I took a fair amount of notes: all concerning how I may better myself. Many involving how I may better myself in the situation we're in now—living with my in-laws for the third time :)
This gospel is the most important knowledge I know. It just floated around me for most of my young life, but how grateful I am for the patience of my parents and the Lord. How grateful I am to have had experiences enough to know now that there is a God in heaven whom I may call Father. How grateful I am to have Heavenly parents to turn to as well as earthly ones. I am grateful for the Savior Jesus Christ and to have had an opportunity to ponder upon his atonement and sacrifice yesterday. I know, every day, that I am who I am (in large part) because Jesus was willing to be who he was.
. . .
I trust that you always know that I love you, but here it is again just in case: I love you. You have been the brightest light in my life. You have been my deep friend for so long that my heart no longer remembers what it was to not have you. You are in my every decision, and in every part of my deepest smiles.
Thank you for being my wife.

.a boy

Hi Boy,

Just a note to say how grateful I am for you and your calming presence in my life.  Thank you for standing in for me when I cannot stand.  Thank you for creating opportunities to laugh when all I can think to do is scream at the sky.  Thank you for being more organized and less overwhelmed than I am. Thank you for having a level head.  And thank you for being compassionate toward me.  You are the best friend I could ever have wanted to walk through this mire with.

This year is turning out to be even bigger and more full than I had anticipated even a month ago.  First, you're the branch president. And now a long interaction with the hospital. And in the future, caring for my dad and possibly living in that basement again.  I'm looking forward to our trip out to Utah.  It was be such a respite and a grand adventure.

Although it's really hard  and really heartbreaking at the moment, I'm so grateful for life, even life right now.  It's teaching me and molding my character and changing my heart. However hard, it seems to be what I needed.  It reminds me of this saying attributed to the stoic, Marcus Aurelius,
True understanding is to see the events of life in this way: "You are here for my benefit, though rumor paints you otherwise." And everything is turned to one's advantage when he greets a situation like this: You are the very thing I was looking for. Truly whatever arises in life is the right material to bring about your growth and the growth of those around you. This, in a word, is art -- and this art called "life" is a practice suitable to both men and gods. Everything contains some special purpose and a hidden blessing; what then could be strange or arduous when all of life is here to greet you like an old and faithful friend?
I don't know that I've matured enough to say "this is the very thing I was looking for," because if I could choose, my dad would still be talking and riding his bike and playing racquetball and making cookies and being his quietly perceptive self, but he's not a complainer (and he's still quietly perceptive... Just even more quiet) so I will try not to complain either.  This experience, though acutely, soul crushingly painful, has also been the vehicle for so much goodness.  I am humbled and amazed all while limping along.

Dear Boy,

It's a new year now.  I think I wrote on this blog maybe twice last year.  This year looks to be the year of all years.  I expect that it will be epoch.  Let's start by going to NYC to my first real ballet.  I can't wait!  And then let's go to Utah and see those mountains that I've fantasized about for the past seven years.  And we'll go to the world famous Henry Doorly Zoo and the Grand Canyon and all the other grand things between the two.  We'll see your family and my friends and our old home, Provo.  My anticipation for this trip is almost as great as my anticipation for the ocean.  Very, very close.  And let's ride a train in the Adirondacks.  Maybe we'll get goats this year?  And we'll completely change the course of our life when we swap places in the home and set our sight firmly on being farmers.  That part of this year to come has been a long time in the making.  And I'm ready for it.  And I think you are too.  I'm sure that's just a beginning.  Jordan and Diana will have a baby.  Maybe I will, too?  I'm sure we're up for some surprises.  Life is like that.

I was thinking today about you and me.  I was thinking how very good it is to be a part of you and how full my life is and bursting my heart is because you are in them both.  And then I was thinking that my greatest hope for every person I care about is that they find love the way we have.  For instance, I thought of your sister who is getting married in a few weeks and I hoped for her that this is the beginning of something as magical and comfortable and sure as yours and mine.  I hope my sisters will find this kind of love and companionship.  I hope your brothers will.  It is just that this thing I have with you, it has made my life.  It is the stuff of my life.  It is in every good thing.  It is every good thing.  When I married you, I felt sure that I would love you forever, but how could I have known just how?  Ten years into it and that love which started in one location has moved all over the place and created an intricate map so that today's love is all of those locations at once.  It is more broad and high and deep (I guess the map is topographical) than I could have imagined ten years ago.   And I can't see the future, but I know it holds something incredible.  So I wonder, were we incredibly lucky?  Or can this be duplicated over and over?  My hope is for the latter.  I hope for every person still looking that the circumstance of our relationship wasn't sheer dumb luck.

From, me