This past weekend, R and I celebrated having been together for one year.  We sort of dedicated the weekend to ourselves, spending almost the entire time together and having a great time.  On Friday we both had the day off, so after having breakfast with my sister who was passing through town, we spent the afternoon planning a canoe trip on the Yampa River for the first weekend in June.  We looked up routes, called the State Park, and made lists of gear, maps, and people to invite to join us.

I can’t even begin to explain how excited I am about this trip–mostly because I SO miss the feel, smells, sights, and sounds of water.  Growing up on the lakes of Wisconsin, it’s so hard for me to live in a place where the only sizable bodies of water are reservoirs that are often ice cold, windblown, and uninviting.  I miss the feel of dipping a paddle into a lake at sunrise as the mists lift of the water’s surface and seeing the still water with its surface covered in dust and settled pollen swirl into chaos as my paddle’s movement disrupts it.  I miss putting on my suit and heading to Lake Harriet on a hot summer day for a dip in the murky water full of screaming kids and scantily clad teenagers.  These are things that one simply cannot do easily in Colorado, and as much as I love it here, I miss those sensations tremendously.  So, a few weeks from now I will get to revisit some of those feelings as we paddle for a few days on the Yampa.   I can’t wait!

The real highlight of the weekend, (aside from my new yellow saddle on my fixie bike) was doing some backcountry skiing on Saturday afternoon with R, followed by a huge dinner we cooked up at my mountain house near Breckenridge.

 It was the way we decided to spend our anniversary and I think that in doing so we made a statement about what it is that makes us work.   We both love pushing ourselves, being outdoors, experiencing new things, and enjoying all that life throws at us.  We both work hard and play hard.  We run or ride bikes for 3 hours, and then have beers with our friends to pass the afternoon.  We both hate the idea of sacrificing our lives to work, working out, or being social–we want a balance of all three even if that means some sleep is lost in the process!

I respect him, the things that make him different from me, and the things that tie us together.  He is different enough from me that I defer to his judgment on a lot of things and he does the same for me–leaving both of us a degree of autonomy that I think is mutually appreciated.  We don’t need to be with each other, but life if a hell of a lot more fun when we’re together.  As we grow closer, I am constantly amazed at how different this relationship has been from my previous relationships in terms of the level of respect we share, the tenderness, and the profound security I feel with him.  I have only been with one other person for a year of my life, and I spent many more years with that person.

This one year mark seems like a pretty big deal for me in that sense and I’m happy that we shared it together, hiking up a solitary mountain and skiing some untracked snow.  I hope that, like the untracked snow, this relationships breaks some new ground for me in terms of opening up and sharing myself–something that is easily talked about but hard to really do.