You're not even gone yet and I miss you like crazy. I know it's a whole lot of added hormones with this pregnancy thing and all, so every single emotion I express explodes into a ticker tape parade as soon as I open my mouth and eyes to express it. So thanks for understanding that about me right now. And handling it all carefully, every single shift and spike and lull and sob.

I remember falling asleep with you in your bed (with all our clothes on!) in that house on Magdalena when we dated. I would sit up and look at you as you slept. Just watching your chest move up and down with breath and the peacefulness of your eyes gently closed as you drifted off into dreamland. I would push your hair back off your face over and over just to feel it in my hands. I remember just tracing the lines of your face with my fingertips wondering how on earth I could possibly love you any more than I did in that very moment. In that instance I could not imagine any more depth that could expand and grow within the confines of my heart. I couldn't fathom being mad at you or ever fighting or going more than a day without seeing you.

So all this time has gone on and all these experiences rolled into numbers of years that don't make a lot of sense when I say them out loud. How is it possible that it will be a decade of 'us' at the end of May since that night I watched you sleep so long ago? And how grand it is, this variety of feelings that have combined to bring us here today so far away from then. And how love feels different the longer you're in it. And how much defining it changes the more you know a person, create other persons with this person, and then have to miss this person on a regular basis.

And although we have learned to refine the way we cope in your travels and understand better how to communicate with one another the ways we need it, I am glad for the hurt and ache I feel when you are absent. Knowing and expressing the void I feel when you are gone has made me realize how much more important we have become to one another and non-replaceable right now more than ever.

And while my favorite part of many of my days are watching you make our children laugh, my most favorite moment this month was looking into your loving eyes after my tears left mascara on your perfect lips before we kissed goodbye.

I wish I could open my chest and write I love you with the bleeding tears I feel on the inside when you are away. Just so you could comprehend the love I have for you and how intensely powerful it feels right now. I wish I knew it in a language that would reflect the appropriate level of expression I want to convey.

Somehow I miss you doesn't really cover it.

So.....thanks for being around and asking me out that first time. I am glad I get to be the one to love you. And make babies with you.