I miss the still of the silence as you breathe out and I breathe in

So, my aunt jamie sent me an incredible email. As did marissa. And I love that I got them both on the same day at the same time and read one after the other slowly, and without stopping, and it was like eating a huge piece of angel food cake. Really, really wonderful, basically.

And I've rerealized, or perhaps even better than the first time, how much beauty is in the world. And how much I love these two people.

Jamie added a ps email that she sent afterwards:

Marriage, the good side:

I’m married to my best friend.
We laugh all the time.
It’s us against the world, every day.
We think the same thoughts so often it’s scary.
We have 25 years of shared experiences and memories, most of them sweet.
Each is the first person the other turns to when something good or bad happens.
We ask each other for advice constantly, really listen and consider it, and then have complete freedom to ignore it without anyone’s feelings getting hurt.
He still takes my breath away when I see him in a crowd.
Each of us knows the other is doing the best we can on any given day.
I can tell him the ugliest things about me and he doesn’t judge me...he just prefers to concentrate on the good stuff.
When one of us is wrong and behaves ungraciously, selfishly or outrageously, we own up to it and apologize.
We forgive, and forgive, and forgive...and forget.
We understand the importance of leaving the past in the past.
We both know how lucky we are.

---
And I was thinking about that a lot last night. Last night Josh and I actually went out on a date, which was really funny because it was totally not something we really do very often. And from him setting off his car alarm on purpose while I waited in it, and my spilling sweet and sour sauce all over my skirt and his car, and our almost getting locked out on the roof of the movie theatre when we took a different route out, and then watching the KU/UNC game with a heap of his friends... I realized that most of my memories are sweet, too. In fact, almost all of them are. And the ones that aren't can be, if you look at them in the right context.

He's very seriously considering the peace corps for two years after he graduates, before grad school. And that's incredible, and would probably be an unforgettable experience for him. Is it bad that when he talks about it, I love the idea of it, but at the same time, my heart hurts? It shouldn't, right? I mean, that's a while from now. It's just that I don't feel like this is very short term. And that's strange, I know, and very high school of me. But it's true.

He wrote a song about part of my aunt jamie's email. I forwarded the email to him, and she said the following:

"I say that marriage has got to be an “eyes wide open” commitment — one you make knowing that the person you marry:

• is imperfect,

• will make choices you don’t agree with,

• will go through emotional/spiritual challenges they may choose to exclude you from (such as the death of someone they love, or the loss of a job or dream), and

• quite possibly will change in ways that you’re not going to like and can’t control. "

He played it for me last night. I think it was called "eyes wide open," and it was really, really honest. kind of painful, but real. which is kind of the point, I think. he totally didn't want to. and he was mortified and nearly walked out of the room afterward without looking at me. it means more to me than he realizes that he stayed and turned around.

so. so so so.