48 Months

That's either a lot or a little.  It depends on your perspective.

It's a very small slice of their overall lives.  It's also perhaps the most intense part of their lives.

Not many months after connecting, they were COVID bound in studio apartments, shared with LiLou, their 135 pound pig.

lilouthepig.com

They worked and ate and saw each other, and only each other and the random store clerk.

Then they came and stayed with us for a few months. That was a whole different kind of closeness, with a fabulous intensity for all of us.

Still working and living with LiLou, they were married and pregnant and birthing babies in short order, having waited long enough.  Learning that sleep is vastly overrated, they've dealt with problems large and small.  

Now they and LilLou are in a bigger house, with a lovely backyard, a talkative two year old, and an incredibly advanced three month old.  They are starting to balance cost of living and school districts and the value of staying close to friends and the loss of remote work - nothing different than anyone else I've ever known, except for the compactness of time.  

Through it all, they don't pass one another without a loving touch and a kind word.  

It's a promise they made and one they've kept.  They fill each other's holes, gracefully and gratefully, happy to have one another around.  One is able to function in the morning, the other not so much.  One cooks.  One researches the best way to do things.  One loves to shop, one would be happy if comfy clothes appeared without effort.  

And so, without much stress, they are clothed and fed and living their best (sleepless) lives.

48 months ago there was this:

Now there is this:

48 months ... long days.... short years.  Here's to 48 times 48 more.