"She used to have the cutest short hair."
-Judy, absentmindedly, on a news reporter. She always laments when women sell out and let their hair grow

I was telling her this animated story about turning lanes today while we were driving on our way to a doctor appointment and waving my arms around and laughing about it, and I looked over and she was just smiling at me. "I'm glad you're here." She said, in reply to my story. And it's moments like that. I want to freeze time. Sleeping in, and then when we finally wake up, I just go in her room and lay on her quilt and we just talk with no age-gap between us.

I've been away from Utah long enough to start to believe in real love again. To melt my heart when I see my grandparents talk about their deceased spouses. To realize that yes, you can make a love last 50 years. I don't pretend to know how to hope for that myself (perhaps the Lord will come back before that affection could stir up within me. It would take a lightning bolt to feel butterflies again) but I have to recognize that it happens for other people. And that is a beautiful thing.

If only I could steal one of those stories and sell it as a novel. I might need another summer for that.