Sunday, April 17, 2011

We're going through changes

Tonight I reread some of the emails that my husband and I exchanged after we first met in a chat room in early 2004. I haven't looked at them for about six or seven years, and it was bittersweet to read them. Even though we love each other, it's no longer the same love we shared in those emails; we're not those people anymore. In a lot of ways, I miss who we were back in those days when everything the other said (or wrote) was wonderfully exciting, those days when we counted the hours until we would talk again, when we shared the minutiae of our lives and hung on each other's words, when we finally met and shared that first breathless kiss...

Things have changed now. They have to, I guess, as we evolve, as we grow older, as our circumstances alter and fluctuate--living together, getting married, having children, weathering the ups and downs of day-to-day life. It's a different love now--not better or worse, but different. And I know that our love will continue to evolve as we go through life, as we grow older, as our children leave home to pursue their own dreams and goals, as we settle into a life with only each other to hold on to. I look forward to growing old with my husband, to seeing who we become.

But my heart does ache a bit for those lost days, for those two people who were so much in love.

3 comments:

  1. Oh, how I relate to this! In my case, I also mourn the lost opportunity to see how things would've happened if I hadn't gotten pregnant. He only told me the night before I took the pregnancy test how much he liked me. 24 hours later, we were looking at a whole new world. It's a beautiful world, to be sure, but we instantly shifted away from dreamy conversations to practical considerations. Oh, how I miss the former!

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  2. Tara: Glad to know I'm not alone! ;)

    Deb: That's exactly what I feel--the dreamy conversations you mention are few now, and it seems somedays that all we talk about are things that have to do with the kids. I agree--it is a beautiful world, but I do miss the people we used to be...

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