I Thought I Loved You Then

"Do you want to listen to something?'

It had been quiet ever since we both sat down at our desks ten minutes earlier. We share an office, my desk facing one wall and his another. In the evenings, after the kids are all in bed, it is our retreat--nothing but the two of us tapping away at our keyboards.

"Yeah," I replied in perfect confidence, knowing my husband's taste in music mirrors closely my own.

He snickered as The Hamster Dance rudely interrupted the peaceful ambiance I crave after 9 pm.

"Uh...NO thank you."

I can always count on Wes to make me laugh at some point in the evening.

Within a few minutes he found something perfect on Spotify.

"Ooooh. This is nice," I said, recognizing the instrumental version of a song by The Fray.

More tapping on the keyboard.

"This is something you might hear in an elevator," I said. "You know, the easy-going instrumental version of a popular song."

Silence.

"We just made elevator music our listening choice for the evening," I continued.  "I think that makes us old."

Truth be told, I love growing "old" with Wes.

A few weeks ago we showed our kids some YouTube videos of people running the Snake River. It brought back memories for both of us of falling in love in between our own river runs.

That night, in the the family room, ten wide eyes stared up at us, captivated by the stories of the younger versions of their mom and dad.

There's nothing quite like remembering that time when we were just beginning to define our lives by the other's presence. Each of us laying awake at night, wondering if the other could possibly feel the same way. Hoping the time apart, before we could see each other again, would pass quickly. Starting to picture the rest of our lives together.

All that is young love wells up in my heart again--only it's layered, compounded by fourteen years of complete emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual intimacy. A feeling hardly captured with a cliche, "I thought I loved you then."

And I know we're not ancient. But fourteen years of the kind of closeness marriage can foster makes me feel "old" in a good way.

The other day I sat in my car, bawling my eyes out as I listened to Fred's story of Sweet Lorriane on NPR. Have you heard the song he composed for his wife of 73 years?

Again, "I thought I loved you then," just isn't adequate.

How grateful I am for the covenants we have made in the Lord's temple. To know that though we grow old together and one day death will take us, we will be together again. Eternal marriage is a gift from a loving Heavenly Father, made possible through the Atonement of His son, Jesus Christ.

For more information on LDS temples and eternal marriage, go here and here.