my planning partner

with life still up in the air, neil and i always come back to the same conversation every few weeks as to where our life might be headed.

we talk about near future - where we are going to find jobs, what is going to bring us the most fulfillment in life, what is going to set us on the path that we're supposed to be headed.

we talk about our next-to-near future - how long we should live in the city, when should we start a family, where should we be when we start that family, how we are going to set our lives up to prepare for the distant future.

and of course the distant future. which is usually our hopes and dreams without a clear plan of how to attain them.

i wish so much there could be a secret camera recording these conversations because i'm sure 5, 10, 20 years from now we'd love to watch these tapes and just laugh and laugh about how different our reality was from our "plans".

but even though i know my life is most likely going to go in a separate direction from the plans we talk about today, these are still some of my favourite conversations i get to have with neil.

it's these times we get to share our hopes and dreams, lament together our frustrations for wanting to just figure out already what our next step in life will be, get excited together about how open the possibilities are for our future, and daydream what life could be like in 5 years.

it's times like these when i get to fall in love with neil a little bit more. i get to be reminded of his genuine passions, his openness and honesty, his fears, and his absolute love and concern for our relationship and our future together.

no, we don't walk away with a clear game plan as to what to do next. but we have become quite a team - bouncing ideas off of each other, coming up with new strategies, rejuvinating ourselves for our continued search.

and always, always reinforced with the thought that aren't we lucky to have each other as partners as we find our way.