I’ve fallen in love, again and again.

The years in my mid-twenties, when Robyn and I fell in love, were some of the best of my life. Looking back, that whole time felt like a smile.

Eight years ago this week, Robyn and I were wed at an old Jesuit church in downtown Detroit. This was the Gospel reading we chose, Matthew 7:24-25:

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock."

We chose this reading deliberately. Fresh off the sudden passing of my father three months before our wedding day, we had already been through the gales and floods of a big storm. The notion of “in good times and bad” wasn’t just an abstract concept to us—our young relationship had already lived through both.

We had at least some notion of the good and bad days ahead. We knew that there would be more death and grief ahead. We didn’t know exactly what parenting would be like, but we did have some idea of the intense joy and struggle it would entail.

We knew that jobs would come and go with varying levels of stress and accomplishment. We knew that we’d have fun passing time around Detroit with friends and neighbors. And, perhaps most importantly, we knew that “family first” would be a guiding principle for our life together, and with that commitment would come love and sacrifice.

We chose that passage for our wedding Gospel reading because we wanted to anchor our marriage into the “rock” of God and love so we could celebrate the good days and weather the bad days we knew would come.

We didn’t know exactly what was coming or when, but we knew it would.

All that said, something happened over the last 8 years that I never predicted, and honestly, it completely blindsided me.

I never imagined, after that first season of falling in love, that I’d fall in love with Robyn again. That I’d feel that rush of romance after we had long passed the days of being love birds and our honeymoon phase.

But I have. As we’ve lived through each new season of our life together, I’ve fallen in love with Robyn again and again.

And I’m so grateful.

The reason why this happened is simple: we’ve each changed, a lot. Of course, our core principles remain intact. But holy cow, so much has happened these past 8 years. The entire context in which our lives are set has changed, how could we not be different people?

All this change has made things novel and fresh. It has given us an opportunity to fall in love again and again, in every new season. That’s a choice: we’re choosing to grow together instead of apart, and that has perhaps made falling in love the second, third, and fourth times even more exciting and beautiful than the first.

And what a silver lining that is.

Because I know I’m getting older. I see it and feel it regularly. Like when with each new haircut I notice a few more grey hairs. Or in how my hangovers are less frequent, but last much longer.

All these are mile markers that remind me that every day I’m a day closer to the end of this beautiful life.

But damn. It makes aging so much more bearable to know that as we grow old we are growing older together. And that as our seasons change we will get to fall in love several more times throughout our life.

If we must trade our youth for age, it is a blessing to realize that we get this gift to fall in love, again and again.