I get married next week. Next Thursday, to be precise. There will be the water, the clear blue Florida sky, the smell of earth around us, sunlight being filtered through the leaves of an Oak. Our parents and friends surrounding us, watching us take turns promising ourselves to each other.

Time has taken an altogether different quality. Every single moment is filled to the brim with beauty. I used to spend my adolescence and part of my teenage years railing against lost time. Each moment was slipping away. You could never exist fully in the moment. By the time you noticed “now”, by the time it registered in your awareness, it was already gone. It’s like being driven on a farm road with your legs dangling off the back of the pickup’s gate. Each moment just slipping away and gone before you know it.

But now. Every moment is so wonderful. Each second I spend with her is so precious. So new. I no longer think about lost time. I exist fully where I am, when I am.

Our marriage will not be the end of anything. And it will not be the beginning. Everything is always happening and it’s all important. And everything causes something else. There is, quite literally, no beginning and no end. Which is why right now makes such a huge difference. What we do right now is what’s important.

I get married next week. Today I turn 25. Yesterday I watched the silhouette of a bird wheel and disappear behind the curve of a building and I watched the light in our bedroom reflect off her beautiful lips while she told me about her day.

Every moment is so beautiful. The world is just begging to be paid attention to.