Thursday, September 18, 2008

And now it's September

My how the time flies.

The air has turned crisp and lovely. Annaliese is chomping down all sorts of interesting meals, scooting around the house on her butt and yammering up a storm.

And this morning, for the 1096th morning, I woke up next to the girl of my dreams. (That would be the 3 year anniversary of our marriage, one of those years being a leap year.)

It didn't strike me when I first opened my eyes at 7 this morning, got out of bed, and threw on a robe to go see what Shadow was barking at. (The meter man.) But when I came back into the bedroom, which Alexe recently re-arranged, effectively making the house feel new and fresh with the new season, I saw sprawled across our bed a lovely long girl, her freshly-cut hair in a morning-punk, her face smooshed into my pillow, and my stomach flipped.

This is the girl that has countless times inspired me to get into my car and drive, hop on planes, dial a phone, whatever I had to to be near her. My heart has twittered, my breath has caught, always to resolve with a sigh, a relaxing of my stomach and a sense of belonging.

And she's all mine. I get to crawl back into bed, pushing and shoving until there's enough room for me, see the smile cross her face in her snoozy state as she shuffles until we're settled and twined for another few minutes of peace before Annaliese wakes up.

And now we have Annaliese. A project that we share, a creature that makes us proud, happy, and overcome with school-girl-crush love.

There are trials and tribulations, struggles and frustrations that weigh on our world, but they're all outside. The place that I have found, citizens 3 and counting, is a mountain top where I find complete peace. The crap can't touch me here. My stomach, I can't emphasize this enough, has never been so relaxed.

It's luck, a blessing, Alexe's gift, certainly not due to anything I've done or deserve. But I am eternally grateful, and incredibly happy.