To 1,100 Days of Us

Last night, I dreamt that I was with one of my first boyfriends, someone I dated many years ago when I was very young. As we sat together, he professed his affection for my hugely pregnant self. Calmly, I looked at him and said "No. I don't love you, and this isn't your baby."

I wandered away, walking further into my dreamworld. Soon I encountered another former boyfriend, and he too looked at me beseechingly. "No." I said. "It's not you, and this isn't your baby." I continued roaming, alone, searching for something.

Then I awoke, opening my eyes to my sleeping husband lying next to me, who is more incredible than any dream I've ever had.

Lying there in the early morning light, I listened to his calm, rhythmic breathing and the sounds from Fairfax High's football practice two blocks away, echoing across the field and through my window.

Suddenly, I flashed back to almost three years ago. My future husband and I are sitting in a darkened movie theater, watching "Rebel Without a Cause" on the big screen. In front of us, on the patio of the deserted mansion, Natalie Wood gazes at James Dean and murmurs, "So this is what it's like to love somebody." As we turn to stare googily-eyed at each other in the dim light, I realize that, for the first time, I know what Natalie means.

So this is what love is. More incredible than any dream, deeper than I knew possible, greater than anything I could have imagined.

I am so very lucky.

...someone in the world awaits you, whether it's in the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning...when you are loved, you can do anything in creation.
- Paolo Coelho