People say that time slips through our fingers like sand. What they don't acknowledge is that some of the sand sticks to the skin. These are memories that will remain, memories of the time when there was still time left.

I want my own books to have their own shelves," you said, and that's how I knew it would be okay to live together.

He was my first boyfriend, and I made him my everything - he was my new life, my new love, my new compass point. I guess that's the danger with firsts - you lose all sense of proportion.

Even though it was hard to see you, it was good to see you.

In school, the year was the marker. Fifth grade. Senior year of high school. Sophomore year of college. Then after, the jobs were the marker. That office. This desk. But now that school is over and I've been working at the same place in the same office at the same desk for longer than I can truly believe, I realize: You have become the marker. This is your era. And it's only if it goes on and on that will have to look for other ways to identify the time.

There is a part of childhood that is childish, and a part that is sacred. Suddenly we are touching the sacred part -- running to the shoreline, feeling the first cold burst of water on our ankles, reaching into the tide to catch at shells before they ebb away from our fingers. We have returned to a world that is capable of glistening, and we are wading deeper within it.

A year. A thousand kisses. And now a thousand one, a thousand two. There are so many other place we could have ended up, but I have to believe none of them would have felt this right. "All I want is you" is not entirely true. I want so much more, and with you I think I can get it.