Day Twenty-Two

Well - we made it - today is my and my husband's 30th wedding anniversary. He even bought me a diamond necklace! It was touching as he had tears in his eyes when he handed it to me and told me he loved me. I look at this man who I have shared so much with and see him in a whole different light now that we are on our own and able to concentrate on what brought us together in the first place. You never lose those things that somehow seem to shine through when you first meet, those things that made you fall in love with this person in the first place, and end up taking a back seat while you're doing all the things that responsible people do with their lives. The children become the center - as it should be - but then, all of a sudden, you are once again toe-to-toe and rediscovering the depth of those things that brought you together and made you a couple. There were times when we felt so disconnected, so foreign to one another, and so adamantly opposed in our ideas. The differences in our likes, dislikes and reasons for existing seemed insurmountable and so far apart. But, miraculously, we were able to keep the divide as narrow as we could and even though things seemed stressed at times, we always knew we loved each other and that our relationship was worth fighting for - that the circle would close and feel whole again. I see such love in this man's eyes and believe it was always there but somehow I was too busy or distracted to notice it. I cannot now imagine my life without this man.

After a couple of appointments this afternoon, we drove up to Lake Tahoe and had an early afternoon dinner at a restaurant in Kings Beach which had a nice view of the Lake as we dined on the patio. After that, we went to Sand Harbor and actually went for a swim. It was fun to see the young families with children and quite frankly, we couldn't remember when we were there last but it was probably in the same situation as most of the couples there. As we were leaving, the car next to us was packing up the accoutrements of a day at the beach with two young children and we chuckled as we backed out and pulled up next to the back of their car. Mom was packing the children in the car and Dad was loading the back with all the stuff and caught our smiles as we went passed. Bob stopped and we said, "been there, done that." The guy laughed and commented how the toys took up more actual space than the kids. All I could think of was, "We're free, we're free." Now I know why birds push their chicks out of the nest at some point. It is really satisfying when you know you've done enough to get your kids the skills they need to survive. And what's even better, is when they come to visit us - we have the most amazing conversations! Oh, I still cry when I go through their photo albums but the memories that we've made together as a couple and a family will get us through the rest of our lives, and the memories we will be making now will be the sweetest of all.