It's all about the love...

This week my seldom used hotmail account was hacked and started sending offers for weight loss, enhancement drugs, teeth whiteners and health care offers to my friends. I've had that account for...years.... I can't even remember how long. I don't use it much because it was overrun with spam and didn't synch well with my iPhone. I kept it because I had a file of correspondence between me and John when we were first dating.

Before I shut down the account I printed out all the email I had saved in my 'John' folder. It printed in random order - over a hundred messages and John and I have enjoyed flipping through those pages, reading some of the emails. We've been married nearly 10 years - and crammed a lot into that 10 years. As John was reading some of the messages he said to me, "Man, that guy really loved you a lot.... He still does."

The messages make me smile - they are full of professions of love, some poetry, some drama, some longing. There are names I no longer recognize, events that I had completely forgotten. The Kate who wrote and received those messages could have never imagined the life we have now. But what I know for certain is that I love John more now than I could have possibly contemplated then even if these days our emails are more likely to be about schedules and what's for dinner....

Here's a glimpse of one of the poems he sent to me shortly after we got engaged:

"The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They are in each other all along."

--Rumi