Each Year

, originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Last year, in late spring, Gym and I started noticing these beautiful purple flowers on some of the trees in the city. At first there were just a few of them, but as the weeks went by, the flowers became more plentiful until it seemed like every street was glowing with violet. Neither of us had ever noticed these trees before, despite having lived in Los Angeles for years, and we decided oh-so-sappily that they must have bloomed just for us. On more than one occassion, we half-joked that we could get married underneath one and not need anything else by way of flowers or decoration. Just standing by these trees was magic enough. When the flowers on the Jacarandas eventually faded, and the trees looked normal again, I worried that they might not bloom again, and that we'd missed our chance.

Early this year, when winter had passed and the trees in LA were just starting to think about becoming green again, I was suddenly struck with a fleeting thought of the Jacarandas. Gym and I were broken up then, and in my saddness over that I couldn't imagine that I'd be able to handle seeing those purple flowers, should they decide to reappear.

Cut to a day at the beginning of May when I was driving home from work and a flash of lilac colored tree caught my eye. My heart bounced with happiness. Life had taken unexpected turns in the preceding months, and Gym and I were back together. He was doing reshoots on a movie in London at the time, I couldn't wait to call and tell him to get home because the Jacarandas were in bloom again. Over the next several weeks, we watched the trees get full and fat together.

Tomorrow is the two year anniversary of our first official date. We are going to celebrate it despite the five months we spent apart because blessings, the ones you can count on and the ones that surprise you, ought to all be cherished.