10 years and life to go.

For our tenth anniversary Luke and I decided to take a trip to California, but really, we just wanted to escape somewhere - anywhere - on plane, outside of the state. WITHOUT KIDS.

Can I just say what a good call that was? And we won’t wait 10 years until we do it again. No way. This could be an annual thing. Or a twice a year thing. Or maybe more. Whatever it takes.

I love my kids. I totally do. But the moment we left the house at 5 a.m. and headed for the airport – I felt it. The lack of questions, the lack of whining, the lack of hunger, the lack of anticipating the next need, the lack of voices, the lack of noise. All was calm; all was bright.

I FREAK OUT when I'm flying, and yet when we climbed above the clouds and soared at whatever thousand feet, I felt light and lifted. I let the sun's golden rays shine through my little window and warm my face. And I felt heaven draw in even closer to me.

I so looked forward to sleeping in every morning, and yet I couldn’t wait to wake up each day with the sun and discover something new. The hustle and bustle of L.A., the gorgeous blue waves crashing onto the soft Laguna shore, the surfer beach where my in-laws first met, or the cute little Mediterranean restaurant in West Hollywood that made me feel like I was in the middle of Santorini

I love my husband very much. Yet this trip, I also really liked him. Like in an "oh-yeah-you-are-my-best-friend" sort of way. It's easy to forget sometimes as you are making lunches, reading bedtime stories and refereeing arguments how much you truly miss just the two of you. I remembered. I remembered how fun it is to talk casually over lunch, to stroll hand in hand down a windy road, to belt out off-key tunes with the windows rolled down in the car, to laugh uncontrollably at ourselves and dream about how our family might look next year and the year after that.

I saw beauty. I really saw it. Like it soaked into my skin and saturated my insides. I couldn’t get enough.

I was awake, Alive, with a capital “A.” I felt it increasingly as wave upon gracious wave would crescendo and crash against my dry, thirsty heart. And I drank it all in; I savored it. I had waited a long time to feel this, and I SAVORED it.

No doubt, this 10 years felt more like a beginning than even year one. The beginning of living life at a different altitude, with wider eyes and with a heart that is no longer severely parched. The years before have been both overwhelmingly good and unbelievably hard. I will carefully study those chapters. I will look back with nostalgia, relief, remorse and joy. I will gather up every page, every word, every heartache, every lesson, every breathtaking moment and keep it all somewhere safe - somewhere very close to me.

And, with tremendous faith, I will turn the page.

I will boldly and thankfully step into the rest of our story. Because what's ahead is already a miracle - an undeniable and real showing of grace. So many possibilities. So much to look forward to. So much hope. 

The water is really that blue and the sun is really that bright.

10 years down and a whole, new life to go.