Today is our wedding anniversary, the real anniversary, the important date to remember that marks four years, the fruit and flowers anniversary. It is the date that Mark and I decided to declare ourselves as married through Pennsylvania common law. And to directly steal from Mark, PA still has common-law marriages... and no you don't have to live together for 7 years. Read the law. We technically have three wedding anniversaries. We had our friend Martin perform our wedding on August 26th 2001 in front of friends and family. But to cover all our bases for certain parts of our families who might have worried about the legality of it all, we stopped at a J.P. on the 23th. Those who knew sprinkled the 26th with 'third time's a charm!' comments! The only date that is important to us is today, but it does make for a good story. It is amazing how quickly time has passed. How happy I am with my choice, to be with someone who brings me so much joy and pleasure. To dream about and plan for the future with, to play and live for the moment with, to share the quiet and not so quiet times with. I realize how fortunate I am to have someone who is as similar to me in so many ways yet different in just as many. Mark and I have such a solid and stable relationship. More secure than I could even think was possible or imaginable for two people. You know, we have never had a reason to fight, truly fight, in the five years we've been together. Don't get me wrong, our relationship is far from bland, we are capable of having very passionate debates, we are also both quite stubborn... we don't say or do anything to each other to bring tears out of anger, frustration or sadness. This, to me, demonstrates that we've learned from our past relationships. We haven't repeated past mistakes. We've learned what it is have, and how to exhibit, mutual love and respect. Well, maybe once, but that was out of sheer exhaustion over the most inconsequential thing and the tears came from no where in particular inside and was completely surprising to me. It's a strange thing, in the past five years I have almost never had a reason to cry, that it seems in the few instances I have out of grief or anxiety, that it just flows and flows to make up for not ever having depressed emotions. This is something Mark and I have discussed time and time again. We never really notice a change in happiness level because we are so content and satisfied with each other all the time. The future we dream about only bodes more of our shared desires and joys. We want to own a decent amount of land, we have our individual ideas of what we want to do with the time and space there, but they are compatible. Me? I imagine a greenhouse and extensive gardens, a few tiny and fuzzy Bantam Silkies chickens, perhaps some miniature sheep. There are dreams of a child, yes, but just one, and not for a few more years, we both agree on that. There are fantasies of travel and sailing. Waxing philosophical here, time flies; I hope we manage to fulfill as many of our dreams as we can in the coming years, before it's too late and we're left to wonder where all the time went.