Jamie and I walk along the beach and, like a kind of running joke, we say again how bloody happy we are here. How ridiculously lucky it feels to have a wild, wide beach just two minutes from home. It still feels like a bit of a miracle, even though it’s becoming ordinary in the way good things eventually do. Scratch that - I don't think this joy will ever be ordinary. There reaches a time in your life where you take less for granted.

I’m even happier because my hips aren’t hurting as much anymore and I can walk longer distances again. That alone feels huge. Maybe it’s just that you get older and start noticing joy more sharply because you know how easily things can be taken away. It's not maudlin. It's just a fact. One day either Jamie or I will walk this beach alone with the ghost of each other.

We were watching some show the other day where the characters were talking about soulmates. I’m not even sure I believe in that idea. My (female) best friend also talks about her connection with her Jamie (yes, we both married Jamies) as too full of 'coincidences' to be anything but pre-ordained. Star crossed lovers and all that.

I don’t know. I think maybe it’s luck. Or timing. Or just meeting someone who happens to be on the same wavelength as you at the right moment in your life. And if you work hard enough and believe enough in each other, it'll settle into something deeper and greater than those childhood fantasies of marrying the perfect mate.

The older I get, the more I believe in science - and I'm not even sure about the existence of a soul. It's a nice thought, but when you're dead you're dead. I don't even believe in consciousness being reincarnated. I don’t really care to land anywhere solid on the topic and I'm seriously happy enough being alive right now, let alone dressing life in some kind of big meaning.

I just know I’m glad we’re together, walking this beach, picking up rocks.

Each beach has its own markers, its own little signatures - one beach might be full of sea glass, another pipi and oyster shells, another round rocks, piles of shells. This one has heaps of holey rocks, rocks worn through with holes, shaped by wind and tide and whatever type of stone they are.

I pick them up and look through the holes, joking that I can see my soulmate through them.

Of course, the only other person on the beach is Jamie. So if I’m looking through anything, I’m looking straight at him anyway.

We keep picking them up as we walk, thinking they'd make a cool mobile for the side fence that looks boring and tired. It feels right to have some beach-ey things around the garden - I'm not one for shells everywhere and they can stay the fuck out of my bathroom, but I do like these, threaded together with found fishing wire.

And of course they now have some significance, some memory attached to them, on a day we walked in the sunshine and joked about souls and rocks and were in love.

With Love,

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