only a lifetime

I'm back home, despite these photos' deceptive location.  I'm not sure when I'll have another excuse to go up to Juneau, so I'm glad I got some photos on the beach.  I think these types of beaches are so much more interesting than sandy, tropical beaches, though the latter are much more appropriate for sunbathing.  Tacoma has a couple similar, albiet less rural, beaches (like the one where we took our wedding photos and where I did these family portraits), but it's so much more work to get in the car and drive there, than just walk a hundred feet out the back door.
It's good and weird to be home.  Like a good procrastinator I haven't done our taxes yet, so I'm only slightly freaking out about tackling that project.  It looks like we've got a couple sunny days this week, so I really want to finish painting the house, too.  It's gonna be a busy two weeks! dress/courtesy of lace affair :: top (similar) + belt/thrifted :: cardigan (similar)/gap boots (similar)/target :: necklace/courtesy of moorea seal tights/courtesy of the stylish fox :: jacket/courtesy of asianicandy I am glad I got to go up and spend a week with my grandparents as an adult.  It's definitely a different experience talking to and hanging out them as a grown up.  Since they lived a plane ride away, we always were with my parents when we visited them, even when I was older.  I know a lot of people are closer with extended family members and grandparents because they live close by.  Dan's Aunt and Uncle are grandparents and it's so cool to see how often they get to see their grandkids.  I know my mom wants to be nearby whenever Dan & I end up having kids (oh, btw if you didn't see, my pregnancy announcement today was an april fools...no baby on the way!).
My grandma has kept so many things from their life together.  She has boxes full of letters, from friends, family, and my grandpa.  My grandpa commercial fished for over 50 years, which meant that he was gone for summers, and would write her letters.  I read a few, trying to get an idea of what they were like when they were younger and in love.  I saw one letter that he signed, "love forever, Martin" and I teared up thinking about how he really has.  They've been married for almost 62 years.  They can barely hear each other and argue a lot (mostly because they can't hear each other), but when they said love forever, they meant it in a way that is more moving now at 92 years old than any emotional, romantic love story.  We tend to think of love stories as these great sweeping romances filled with passion and sensuality, but that's such a limited, stunted, and damaging way to view love.  I can only hope, and work as hard as I can, to have a love like theirs.  Not a love remembered by crazy, wild passion (though that's nice too), but a love remembered by devotion so deep it can only be expressed over a lifetime.