Sometimes I like to imagine what my husband and I will be like many years down the road. 

I envision him, handsome still, with grey hair and a sweater vest, golfing with his seniors group.  I see myself, wearing old-lady slacks and support hose, with bright pink feathery lipstick, talking incessantly about my grandchildren and flower gardens.   

Many, many things have changed between us during our thirteen year relationship.  Friendship changed to romance, apartment changed to house, we got married and had babies.  When we first met, I could barely stop thinking about him.  When we had our second baby in a year and a half, I could barely stay awake. 

We started out as a career-oriented couple, now he is career-oriented and I am a stay at home mom.  He used to cook dinner, meal preparation is now my domain.  And laundry.    There will inevitably be many, many more changes to our relationship.  Our young children will grow into big kids and then teenagers, they will leave home and my husband will retire and my days of non-stop food preparation, laundry, and grocery shopping will surely be a thing of the past. 

Where once our travel plans included hostels and hiking boots, they now include child-friendly activities and grandparents, and surely those plans will change again as the children grow and become uninterested in family vacations.  I witnessed an elderly couple in a garden centre having a dispute over whether the lady's purchase of numerous bulbs was justified or not.  "I don't know where you think you're going to plant those," her husband said, to which she replied only with a smile and the old-lady version of eyelash batting. "I guess we'll make room" he conceded. 

It was a glimpse of my future.  Every year my husband eyes my garden centre purchases with suspicion, every year I surreptitiously dig out more lawn to plant the excess flowers.  One day my husband will take out the lawnmower only to discover the absence of a lawn.    Which is to say: I cherish the things that stay constant between us. 

When we are old I will, as now, prefer a 5:00 dinner time and a 9:00 bedtime, and he will, as now, curse at the weatherman and his bad jokes.  We will always argue about flower purchases in the spring. 

Throughout all changes, our love is unchanged and unchanging.