Marriage

Saturday Ben and I will celebrate our ten year anniversary. I vividly remember just telling him I couldn't believe we'd been married for four years -- as long as college. And suddenly it is six years later. Time has become a strange creature.

I met Ben two weeks before he turned 14. We grew up together. Especially since a lot of that growing up happened in our 20's. And, as we take stock, is still happening in our 30's.

The close of ten years is a tidy place to pause and evaluate. I like to pause and evaluate, which is why I love September and January -- they are the clean-slate months. It's so easy to slush into habit and lose appreciation, purpose, the day.

Tomorrow Ben and I will slip two beach towns south for a weekend away. Though we've left the kids many times, this is our first time leaving them with a babysitter overnight (and paying for a babysitter overnight) -- a rite of passage.

Hopefully while we're there, we'll have some time to remember -- who we were at 21, when we first chose each other; how we dreamed our lives would be; how our lives are; how we're dreaming they'll be in another ten...

I don't love goals because I so often break them, but I do love dreams. Sometimes they begin out of focus, a notion, and slowly sharpen. Sometimes they're a blossom right in your hand. Sometimes you run toward them, so hard you can't breathe. And sometimes you walk away from them. Sometimes you look up and find yourself standing in the middle of one you had forgotten.

Maybe this will be a year of clarifying -- who we are together, what we're making -- a year of dreaming.