Before the Bills and the Back Pain

Sometimes I wonder what I would give to go back to page one of my love story.

Not because I want to change the ending. Not because I would choose someone different. But because I’d love to read those first few chapters again while knowing everything I know now.

I’d like to see us before the mortgage payments, the kids, the jobs, the bills, the arguments, the losses, the responsibilities and all the ordinary life that somehow piles itself on top of two people who once couldn’t get enough of each other. Back when a phone call could make your entire day. When you noticed every little touch. When staying up half the night talking didn’t seem ridiculous because tomorrow didn’t matter nearly as much as right now.

I wonder if I appreciated that version of us enough.

Probably not.

That’s the funny thing about beginnings. You rarely know you’re standing in one. You don’t realize that someday you’ll look back at an ordinary Tuesday night, a cheap dinner, a song playing in the car, or the way someone reached over and grabbed your hand and think, God, I’d give anything to have five minutes of that again.

But I wouldn’t want to stay on page one.

Because page one didn’t know what was coming.

Those two people didn’t know how many times life would test them. They didn’t know there would be days when love felt effortless and days when loving each other was a decision. They didn’t know the people they would lose, the children they would raise, the mistakes they would make, the forgiveness they would need, or how many times they would have to find their way back to each other.

Page one is beautiful because it’s full of possibility.

But there’s something pretty damn beautiful about page 10,000 too.

That’s where the wrinkles are. The inside jokes nobody else understands. The stories you’ve told a hundred times. The fights you barely remember what started. The quiet nights when nobody is trying to impress anybody anymore. It’s knowing exactly how that person takes their coffee, what will make them mad, what will make them laugh, and when they need you to just leave them alone for a minute.

Maybe I wouldn’t give anything to actually go back.

Maybe I’d just like to visit.

I’d whisper to that younger version of myself, Pay attention. This is the beginning of something you’re going to spend the rest of your life remembering.

Then I’d come right back here.

Because page one may have had butterflies.

But these pages have a whole life written on them.