In Love

If we sat in a candle-lit dining room, surrounded by the hush of lovers' whispered hopes and dreams, looking across a too-small tabletop into the face of our future, we didn't yet know it.

We were so young -- not even a ring on my finger yet -- and so deep in it.  You walked out of a room and I physically felt your absence: the air was heavier; I was heavier.  You touched my neck and my skin caught fire.  You laughed and I marveled at the richness of a perfectly common sound.

If we showed up on doorsteps with roses and chocolates in our hands, stepping out into a night that was meant to celebrate love, we didn't understand it.  Not how far it could reach.   

We were so encapsulated.  Muffled within our own reflected gazes.  We never knew.

If we played music in our first tiny-roomed apartment, and used our wedding china for the very first time, filled it with culinary romance, and talked about where life -- love -- would take us, we still didn't understand.

It was all so fledgling.  So unripened.

Because now, we are here.  With depth and experience and truth and love; oh, love.  And if here is so good, so fulfilling and breathtaking and better than any February 14th from the past twelve years, where will we be in another dozen?

When does the growing stop?

I will make the answer:

Never.