Ten years ago,
Shawn and I went to Laughlin with my parents.
The two of us were snuggling in an elevator when an older couple came in, and the white-haired gentleman shook his head in mock disgust at us and said, "Newlyweds," which we were.
I responded with some sort of playful encouragement which made his wife smile up at him, but what I was thinking was, "I can't wait until we're accused of being newlyweds after we've been married ten years."


"Ten years?"
Shawn asked, in a hotel room in Laughlin last Sunday.
"It seems like the blink of an eye."
And, in a way, it does.


I remember the first time I ever saw him, wondering who that guy with the fuzzy head was, standing by David and Suzi at Ian's Kindred game.

I remember meeting him in the RAND parking lot, then having the Santa Monica pier melt away into music and someone making obnoxious kissy noises at us.

I remember him bringing white roses and purple statis and balloons to my work for my birthday.

"Why don't you smile more?" he'd asked.
"Oh, I really don't smile that much," I'd responded, "I'm usually pleasant and friendly, but I don't really smile broadly."
Over the past third of my life, since we've met, he's made that statement a lie over and over again, making me smile so much that sometimes my cheeks hurt.

I remember camping in Zion, reaching out to him in the Narrows. I remember the Universal parking lot. I remember looking in his eyes as we swore to share each others' lives. I remember moving into our house, and That Terrible Day When Everything Went Wrong (wrong freeway, took out the sideview mirror of the rental truck, driving home down Canoga with the Club stuck on the steering wheel of my car to get a call from Shawn to say he'd sliced open his thumb AND slipped on the ice when trying to get to the ER....) I remember watching the moon together, and reveling in thunderstorms. I remember how gentle he was with Hunter that first week when I was in the hospital, and how the two of them so thrive in each others' company. I remember making new memories this past week. So many memories, crowded, jostling, overlapping, too many to ever write down.

But, yes, in a decade of marriage (and thirteen years of Life), not all the memories bring warmth. Sorrows shared, pain inflicted -- all become part of our tapestry, a journey of growth and experience that has so much more meaning because we are going through it together.

And yet, for all that the vibrancy of these memories and emotions does make it all seem as though it has been "the blink of an eye," it has also been forever. It feels so right that Shawn is part of my life that my very being rebels against the thought that I even had a life before I met him. I'll talk about a movie we saw, long ago, only to be reminded that I'd seen it before we'd ever met, and that just seems weird and, well, wrong.

Today, yesterday, forever past and future -- it all seems so arbitrary and irrelevant. Still, on this, the tenth anniversary of our official pledge to be partners in Life, I'd like to take a moment to again publicly declare my love for my husband.

Shawn, I adore you beyond Life itself. You make me laugh and fill my heart, making me radiant with love. With you, no obstacle is insurmountable, no sorrow unbearable. Together, we entwine to create a nurturing shelter and haven for ourselves and our family, and I love you forever.

---

The moment I heard my first love story
I began searching for you,
not knowing how foolish that was.
True lovers don't meet somewhere out there,
but are in each other all along.
-- Rumi, used as the cover of our wedding invitations


Even though we ain't got money
I'm so in love with you, honey
And everything will bring a chain of love
In the morning, when I rise
Bring a tear of joy to my eyes
And tell me everything is gonna be all right.
"Danny's Song" -- Loggins & Messina


Your fire consumes me
Leaves me breathless but strong
I feel like I never knew me
'Til I tasted your song
And your song will always beat
Through my veins with a heat
That scorches my chains
And leaves me
     Free....
"A Song for Shawn" -- written by me as a birthday present for him many years ago