So the thing is… I’m not sure I want to travel through time.

My friend Kathy asked a question recently.  “If you could live one day over, which day would you pick?”

This is a harder question than you would think.  It requires you to actually have some sort of recall that hasn’t been eaten by sleep deprivation.  In other words, it took me a while to come up with an answer.

Let’s see, well, obviously the day Ana was potty trained was a red-letter day and the days my kids were born (although I’m not sure I’d want to RELIVE those, exactly.)  And the day I left for college, the few times I have felt really at home in my skin, and times when hearing harmony so dense I could feel it lifting me out of my seat. 

But I think I have to say that the day I’d like to relive is a very ordinary day.

It was after the birth of our first child.  My husband and I were standing in the kitchen and having a casual conversation about some friends who were going through a hard time.  And I said, rather flippantly, “Well, that would never happen to us because I love you madly.”

I looked at him and my heart did this funny jump.  “I mean, I really LOVE you,” I said slowly. 

Suddenly, I had to sit down.

It was the strangest moment –one of sudden, blinding clarity.  I had said those words before.  I had said them and meant them to my fullest understanding of love.  But when I said that to my husband that day, I suddenly realized what those words meant.  I really LOVE him.  He’s my Person – he’s everything I never knew I needed.  I trust him and admire him and respect him and just... well, LOVE him more than anyone else in my life.  I don't think I knew what that meant before that moment.  And it’s hard for me, even now, to put those feelings into words.

I spent my adult life, until I met my husband, with one foot out the door of every relationship I was in.  I guess I’m a believer in leaving a party before I outstay my welcome.  But with him, it isn’t just that we had these children and that makes the ties much harder to sever.  And it’s not just that I understand what commitment means now.   You know, it was kind of scary when I put away that escape hatch; when I put both feet firmly inside the door, took off my coat and hat and decided to stay.  It meant I had to stick around and work through the bad spots and I had to put some effort into keeping our romance alive.  It is and maybe that’s really the key –I just love being with him.  Every Sunday night, when the weekend is over and he’ll be heading back to work on Monday morning, I get these tiny pale blues.  I just really like him.

I used to always say that I thought people were like puzzle pieces – we connect with other people on different sides.  I never believed that there was only one person for each of us.  But the thing about my husband is that he seems to connect me to the REST OF THE PUZZLE. He inspires me to want to be a better person.  He’s funny and smart and a good kisser  – I’d like to clone him for my single girlfriends (minus the Messiness trait, of course.) 

I think about our relationship a lot.  It’s such a source of comfort and security and happiness for me. (God forbid I should just accept that and not analyze it to death.)  But it WORKS, and if I’m doing something RIGHT, I’d like to know what that is so I can keep doing it.  Plus, I’m just so shocked to find myself in this position – really happily married.  I didn’t think that was in the cards for me, frankly.  I thought there was something inside me that was missing or broken.

Maybe having kids opened the door for my nice husband to squeeze through.  Before I had them, I just never let anyone get close enough to hurt me.  Maybe becoming a mother made me more loving in general.  I feel like I bring a deeper patience and empathy to ALL of my relationships now.

But maybe I’m just a late bloomer – other people seem to know about this whole Real Love thing without having to have tens of thousands of dollars of therapy.  I know lots of people who married young and are still really happy.  My friend Mary is in her 23^rd (consecutive!) year of marriage to her husband and she’s not much older than I am.  She says this about her marriage, “Every day isn't glee club, but I like him and he still likes me.  When the chips are up, he's there, and when the chips are down, he's still there.  He's an extraordinary father.  And he makes me laugh.  A lot.  I can never figure out why we've lasted this long.  We both just never gave up.”

I did a quick survey among my friends who are happily married (which seems to be the majority of my closest friends, actually) about what makes their marriages so strong.  The same traits kept coming up:  Respect.  Trust. Shared values.  And my personal favorite: a shared sense of humor.  (Although when I said that to my husband, he made a face.  “Well, okay,” I amended.  “If not a SHARED sense of humor, then at least a partner that makes the other laugh.” He really makes ME laugh.  And he really laughs a lot AT me.  Seems fair.)

So, I thought about traveling through time to that day, standing in the kitchen of our old house, saying, “I really love you.” and finally understanding what that meant.  Because that day changed my life and I can’t remember much about it.  Just like I don’t really remember the first time we met.  It just seems like I’ve always known him and that he’s always been the perfect man for me.

I guess I don’t want to really relive that day.  (I’m fairly certain I hadn’t even showered.)  It occurs to me that Time Travel, the REAL kind, is more about just going along living life and suddenly realizing that years, and decades, and half-centuries have gone by and without even meaning to, you’ve spent them with your good friend. Your partner. 

The person that you really love.

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(c) Barbara Cooper 2002

Barbara Cooper is the mother of Ana (4.75) and Smiley Jane (2).  She lives in Austin, Texas and her husband says he knows he loves her because she makes him madder than anyone ever has in his life.