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Tuesday, April 14, 2015

two

I am a day-dreamer. As cliche as I feel writing that down, its a fact. I spend a considerable amount of time each day inside my head. I've always been this way. Quietly thinking up best and worst case scenarios. Imagining the future and reflecting on the past. Its habit. So its no surprise, that my head often travels to beautiful places and stays there for a while. One of my favorite beautiful places to dream up is the beach with the person I love most. My head and heart have traveled to that location and date and time over and over and over again.

Sandy toes and fingers. Sunshine far too warm for springtime. Ocean air, tangled hair and salty kisses.

 I thought I understood it. I thought i grasped the idea of what a day-dream like this one would consist of. but the fact of the matter is so much clearer to me now.
There was a moment. A moment I'll hold like a face in the palms of my hands and look at for the rest of my days. Its almost sacred to me somehow, that moment we shared. It was simple, really. Standing on Newport Pier right as the sun was hanging low in the sky, about to dip beneath the deep blue water. It was that time of day when everything is warm and soft with the setting sun, but light enough that the world is still softly glowing. As we stood there on the pier, and put quarters in the coin-operated binoculars and began to twist the nob, focusing the lenses only to find the love of my life, the man I'm going to marry at the other side of the pier. There he was. All six feet three inches, long arms and legs - fingers and toes Standing on a weathered wooden surface with swaying palm trees and a sandy beach behind him. He let out a little laugh and shyly waved a hand as he began to walk closer - that same smile growing bigger with each step closer. And that's it. Thats when my heart nearly bursts. There he is. The man I'm going to marry. The father of the babies we're going to have someday. The person I'm going to sleep next to every night and kiss every morning when I wake. My person. There he is. Right there. I found him.

I found him five years ago as a high school student in my orchestra class.
I found him when he picked me up for junior prom and remembered that I love sunflowers.
I found him the morning after he graduated as we watched the sun slowly rise and felt our lives changing forever.
I found him late in the summertime as we sat on my trampoline and talked about our latest adventures to the desert and Europe.
I found him after he left for college and still remembered to call and check on me.
I found him when the leaves changed and our whole world turned orange, red and gold.
I found him when he first kissed me and held my hand at age seventeen.
I found him that time we slow danced in my kitchen.
I found him when we played in the snow and spent Christmas together.
I found him when I said goodbye to him for two whole years.
I found him in every letter he sent.
I found him when he walked off an airplane after those 24 months and hugged me like nothing had changed.
I found him when I fell in love with him all over again.
I found him every time we've ever sat in the car with tear-stained cheeks because long distance is so damn hard and saying goodbye again and again is exhausting in so many ways.
I found him when we began to talk about starting our life together.
I found him when he got down on one knee and asked me to be his forever one month ago today.
And I found him again on that pier at Newport Beach.

I find him every day. When we're at the grocery store and he takes a good fifteen minutes to pick out mouthwash. When we're at church and he holds onto my hand during sacrament meeting. When we're walking back from the college campus and we talk about the babies we're going to have and the places we're going to visit and the things we're going to do. I find him in little moments. every day moments. folding laundry and making dinner, a call during my lunch break or while we're driving around town. I find him.

That same person who I climbed around the jetty with - who picked me up and carried me into the ocean - who kissed my mouth with salty ocean lips - and held my hand, covered in little grains of sand as we walked across the beach? He's the same person who looked at me across the pier and made my heart stop all over again. He's the same person who I loved at 16, love at almost 20, and will love at 30,47,62,80,105 and into eternity.
Eternity. I choose him not only today, or tomorrow, but forever.

The thing that made this "real-life" daydream so intense and overwhelming and "soul squeezing" is that fact that life is always so much more raw, and deep and breathtaking than you'd ever expect it to be. And that's because it's real. I love this person because he's real. Because his realness is what makes my life and my story beautiful. My person - I found him.

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