many of us spend our lives dreaming about lives we don’t have.

but dreaming about how our lives could be is sometimes the only way to make them any different at all.

here’s what my life could like here, maybe, under the big sky.

our home is a log cabin-style home built among the trees and the mountains, so close to the untamed world that bears wander across our driveway and behind the house, purple lupines grow in between the cracks in our deck, and we feel like we could touch those grey, sharp, mountains of rock that we can see from every window.

you and i found love somewhere else, back east, sometime between our college graduations and that age where you’re the only one of your friends who isn’t married. we fell in love in a colonial-style home we shared, we fell in love at vintage ice cream stands and beside rivers that flow more slowly than those out here.

we moved back here because we missed the space we took for granted when we were kids, we missed the mammoth swaths of clouds and the purple mountains majesty. we moved back because home is, in fact, where the heart is, and our hearts have always rested here.

two hearts that belong in the same place belong together, logically. but that isn’t the only criterion. two hearts should be made of the same stuff, they must match in certain ways (but not others) and they must share the sort of connection where the boundaries between the two become blurry.

that’s the kind of love we’ve discovered between us, and we’ll spend the rest of our lives exploring that love

together

under the big sky.

on mornings in july you meet me outside, on the deck we share with explosive views of the mountains we’ve already explored and the ones we have yet to (the land is expansive, remember). we sit in that swinging, cushioned chair with mugs of coffee and smile at one another.

you tend to rest your head on my chest more than i rest my head on yours, and i think we both like it better that way. sitting on those cushions with you, the two cushions you brought home from the thrift store down the street, i think about how we’ll be 10, 20, 30 years from now.

with you, for the first time, thinking that far ahead is natural. it’s automatic, it’s assumed, and that was true from the beginning.

you should know that i could sit here with you forever, with my arm around you, with our legs tangled together, and with my eyes closed because the feeling that rises in my chest with you here is so much better than any view, no matter how spectacular and expansive.

thank you for blurring out the rest of the world and filling it with color at the same time. that’s what’s magic about you.

this cabin is too big for us, and we knew that when we emptied our savings to purchase it. but we’ve found that, naturally, empty space tends to fill. empty rooms fill with guests from all over, friends, family, coworkers and the like. they’re attracted here by the empty space in this part of the world, the kind of space that can never really be filled, and thank god, because we’d never want it to be.

both of us love to host, and our friends love to visit. but on those nights when every room in the house is occupied, when the house is so full that even the pull-out couch is shared by two, we still have our room. and our bed, that we retire to together, alone, with full chests and stomachs. even after raucous games of skip-bo and boxes of wine that empty faster than they should, even then nights end and mornings starts with just you and me.

that’s one of my favorite parts about us. we have different schedules, sure. we have different passions, different careers, different friends, different families. we have different expectations for one another, different dreams, different needs, and those things don’t always align.

but we’ll go off during the day, and no matter what happens outside the walls of this home we share, we come home to each other. we wake up with one another, we sleep inches apart at most.

we live together, we share lives, but that doesn’t mean they’re identical. somehow, we live the lives we dreamed of and luckily, magically, they align nearly perfectly in ways i didn’t think possible.

as the seasons change so does our love. in the winters we ski often (the mountain’s a three-minute drive away) and i’m a little better at it than you are, though neither one of us is really that good. winter nights bring long soaks in our hot tub with purple lights and snowbanks that come dangerously close to collapsing into the steaming water. the snow falls around us, silently falling into the air but announcing it’s descent as it hits an already thick layer of powder with a sound like soft, slow rain.

we hold hands under the water, we lock eyes and smile, and we shower the chlorine off together afterward. winter nights call for wood fire stoves, thick fur blankets, and wool sweaters. they call for writing in the morning, board games at night, and hot chocolate at all hours of the day.

though i’ll never tell you this, our winters are my favorite of the seasons we spend together. that wasn’t always true. as a kid it was just the opposite. winters were cold and miserable, they kept me trapped inside a house i didn’t enjoy, a house that didn’t feel like home. i dreaded skiing, fought against sledding, and waited impatiently for the snow to melt so i could be free to bike and scooter and hell, even run, away from that house i used to live in.

now, when the snow falls and the snowplow forgets our street (this often happens) it’s not dread that fills me. its warmth, its relief, its excitement and anticipation, because i have you all to myself for a full day, and you have me.

when we have each other, as i hope we always will, the days feel long but short at the same time. we dance across our hardwood floors together, we laugh and share stories we somehow haven’t yet heard from the other, even now, and we rearrange the furniture because both of us grow bored easily. we make snow angles and have snowball fights, yes, and we bask in the soft glow from the fireplace and hold each other tightly.

on winter days like these, i forget my pain, i forget my sorrow, i forget my regrets. all i remember, all i need to remember is you. your love. our house.

my first real home.

and this house, this house is ours. we purchased it used, as we do with everything, but made it our own. i hung your photography on the walls and you hung my poetry, both on our first day here as a surprise for the other. our furniture is dark and made of oak, our cabinets are full of spices and goldfish and endless varieties of coffee. our bedside tables have journals, jewelry and jigsaw puzzle pieces. our shelves have cracked china, framed polaroids, and assorted wooden figures. our floors have random rugs, red wine stains and carpets that desperately need replacing. in our home everything is ours, and that’s the only thing that makes it home at all.

i am yours and you are mine.

my first real home.

may you and i dwell in this house, the one we’ve built with our hearts, forever.

i love you.