I wrote on the card I gave Eric this morning: “24 years?! How does that even happen? How does it happen SO FAST?!” I have no answers for this. Here we are, just living our lives like it’s no big deal — making each other laugh, getting irritated about stupid stuff that doesn’t even matter, doing the laundry and making dinner and walking the dogs — and suddenly we’ve been married for 24 years.

At Chelsey and Jon’s wedding reception this weekend, Eric said, “do you think if we could go back to that day and relive it knowing everything was going to work out, we’d have enjoyed it more?” I said, “you didn’t enjoy our wedding?” He laughed and said that wasn’t what he meant, but rather he remembers being 24 and just starting out, anxious about how things were going to go, wondering if it was going to be okay.

This morning I read this great article from Susan Piver, The Truth About Marriage Vows: Five Promises you Can Keep. She talks about the “not knowing” we enter into when we commit to another person. We can’t be sure, we can’t know, but we dive in anyway. She ends the post by saying,

Here’s something else I’ve learned about a relationship: Okay, so it’s not what you think it’s going to be, the feelings are always changing, and you’re going to have to say goodbye someday. But when you find your love, there is something inside that simply and inexplicably says hello to him. Yes to him. Of course to him. Certainly. Obviously it’s you. There is no choice. I do.

I’ve written a lot about us over the past few years. Here are three of my favorite anniversary posts:

• 20 Years
• 21 Years
• 23 Years In

When I officiated the wedding of some other friends last year, I said that “marriage isn’t a commitment you make just once. Rather marriage allows you the opportunity to choose that person again and again. This can happen in moments of joy, such as today, looking at your partner and feeling overwhelmed by love, knowing this is your person and you are hers, and choosing to commit publicly and legally to your partnership. This choice also happens in some of the darkest moments, when things are hard. Over the course of a long marriage, there are many opportunities to choose. You commit yourself to this person over and over again.”

Today, 24 years in, I choose Eric again. I can’t help it. He’s my favorite.

The first few weeks of my summer vacation, I did whatever I wanted. I slept in, watched a lot of TV, read, took long walks with Eric and the dogs, ate good food, took naps, went to aqua aerobics and yoga and Pilates, got a massage, had lunch with friends, wrote, meditated, got naked with Eric. Sure, I kept up with the laundry and the bills, but the big summer to-do list could wait.

Then I went to Oregon for a week, spent the few days after I got back recovering and unpacking — reentry. Now it’s time to shift gears and tackle the list.

My strategy is to do at least one thing a day. Yesterday it was actually two — cleaning off my desk and balancing the checkbook. So far today I’ve already done three loads of laundry, meditated, did my morning writing practice, and ate breakfast, but none of those things are on the list. Later, I’ll go to a yoga class and a Pilates session, but those aren’t on the list either. I’ll take a shower when I get back, maybe a nap or read some more of Sherman Alexie’s new book, see if Eric wants to get naked with me — also not on the list.

On the list: Painting the outside of the house, repairing and repainting the spots on our drywall where they put in insulation, calling the insurance company about the damage on the door of my still-feels-new-to-me-but-is-actually-more-than-a-year-old car, making an appointment to take it in to get fixed (along with a few other things it needs), dust the living room, get a haircut, clean around the dog beds, work on some tasks from the classes I never finished, mail stuff to a friend, and swap out our modem for the new one they sent us months ago. Other things are happening too, a new furnace and a new fence, but Eric is taking care of those.

I’m not sure exactly what my point is. Maybe it’s just me checking back in, dipping my toe in, saying “hello” and this is where I’m at, what I’m doing, but even this isn’t the whole story. I’ve written you many times in my head, but haven’t been publishing much — that is on the list too.