Always on My Side

Sometimes when I look back, I realize how easy everything was back when we were younger. When I was falling love, when college was my biggest challenge, when my boyfriend surprised me with little things that made the biggest difference in the world, when I could drive two hours to go home to see my family and when the days seemed endless and like they lasted forever. And it seems that those days were the years I will always remember and that's how I picture Portland always, those first walks down to Ai from my old apartment, streetcar rides with friends, riverfront parks and afternoons spent writing. Those evening runs across the bridge, and afternoon trips to UP to see my boyfriend.

And here I am, 4 years later, graduated from college almost a year, back in Portland for a bit, and learning to live a new life with my now fiance. And suddenly life is all about putting wood floors into our apartment, discussing the biggest things in life, working, supporting ourselves for the first time, learning how to be together and independent, how to not give up all of myself to have a life with him. And sitting here this morning in our apartment, in this city that will always be our city to me, I am finally realizing that no matter what we argue about, or no matter how far we go, the little things really never change over time and those are the things that mean the most in the end... it's those little things like having lunch bought for you, or Starbucks in the mornings even if you know it's coming. Or those times when you can just laugh with each other over the stupidest of things, or something that only you two understand.

So things may have changed in the last 4 years, and a new ring may be on my finger, I may be living somewhere new, but one thing has always stayed constant, the young man that I am going to marry has always been that light in my darkness and the friend that got me through. He's who I share my deepest feelings with and who truly knows who I am. And while I'm trying to figure out who I am now, and who I'm not... I know that he is the one that will stand beside me and will always be on my side.