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For years I was most enthralled by the aspect of relationships that we call the "falling" part. I found it so enrapturing to be caught up in the newness of someone else, to be spellbound by new possibility untouched by old misdeeds. It was a chance to become new again, much like moving to a new town, or going to a new high school, where any paths you'd strayed onto could be restarted. Any baggage I carried always waited until much later to arrive--thus the title of the posting. And it most certainly arrived, usually after we were firmly entrenched in what would become an apathetic struggle to find out why we were here anymore; neither one of us being courageous enough to ask the difficult questions.

I only bring these collective memories up because of how profoundly different things are now. Jennifer, whose picture you see at the top of this post, is my wife. Luckily for me, the first time she came into my life I was so inconsequential to her that she does not even remember meeting me. Shortly after that initial meeting, with her going her separate way and me mine, I began to do things differently. I was not ready for her to meet me yet, and whether there was some unknown hand guiding that meeting and keeping us separate for a time, I do not know. What I do know is that in short form the months that followed saw me dive in and change the things that I didn't like in my life.

When you tell people that have known you for a good amount of time that you are getting married, they'll often ask you how you knew to do this. For some there is a definitive moment, a stroke of the clock, a lightning flash, or the face of the Virgin Mary in their cheese sandwich, but for others it is an all-encompassing feeling that permeates the relationship from the beginning. With the two of us, it was both, I feel. We were kismet from the inception, taking the initial infatuation with newness to unprecedented heights. Overcome with this, I waited for the baggage to arrive, but I knew it wouldn't matter. And it did arrive, but we went through it, sorted it, and placed it in its appropriate container.

Our life now extends into so many new directions together; we have a beautiful child, and lives that we work very hard at making exceptional. Still, I remember how I felt when we met for the second time. I hadn't known someone like her ever before, and I still don't.

Jennifer reminds me that passion, like the kind that exists for all reasons light and dark at the beginning, takes many forms throughout your life. It meanders on some days, trying to take you away from the monotony of a long-term plan or goal and into thrilling avenues that lead you nowhere. On others, it shows you the awe in your child's face as he pokes at the lights on a Christmas tree. The passion that only existed in the first few months of my youthful acquaintances, has grown up and is teaching me a few things about living.