A Glimpse...

My husband is fishing at the coast this weekend with his brother and his cousin, and so this is my first weekend completely alone since we got married eleven months ago. After a fitful night's sleep without my sweetie, I woke up this morning determined to redeem the time, lonely or not. So I began to clean. We try to keep our apartment tidy, but it'd been awhile since it'd been "deep-cleaned."

First was the general straightening, and then the vacuuming. The bathroom needed cleaning, too, but first I decided to pull out the dust-rag. When I started cleaning, I had put on a relaxing CD, courtesy of my mom-in-law. The gentle sounds of wind-chimes and piano filled the apartment as I went about the room, gently dusting picture frames and figurines (including the faceless angels my husband so humorously pokes fun at).

This may sound ridiculous if you weren't in my head at that precise moment, but as I tenderly lifted a framed photo of me and hubby-dearest and began to wipe the dust from its edges, the gentle music swelling in the background, I suddenly had a glimpse--of the future, of all our memories yet to be made.

I pictured myself dusting the pictures on the mantle seven months pregnant with our first child, filled with expectation. I saw myself dusting, while children played noisily in the background. I saw myself, dust-rag in hand, looking back on a lifetime of memories.

The pictures in the frames changed and aged as my glimpse took me further into the future, but two things remained the same--a deep and inexplicable peace and my love for my husband--my family. In each glimpse, in each potential memory, I never once felt regret, only an overwhelming sense of...abiding love.

I can't wait until I can get more than a glimpse of what tomorrow holds, and yet I'm learning to treasure the "todays" that I'm given. The memories that I, that we are making now will be the days we look back on in photographs on the mantle, the memories that make us pause and smile. As our first wedding anniversary approaches, I'm amazed at how quickly this past year has unfolded. It reinforces how fleeting time is, and how precious.

Then I was back in the moment, dusting the picture frames, alone in my apartment. But that glimpse has forever changed how I feel about dusting. Now I can't wait for Daniel to get home tomorrow night!