building a present, creating a past

New relationships are awesome right!? It's SO much fun to find out about someone, to learn their stories and share your own.  To meet new friends and find new interests, and discover things and people in common.

Someone recently commented to me that their (newish) relationship had taken what seemed to be, a very long time to evolve.  To ''bed in'' was actually the expression used.  The rationale being that no matter how much you might want to establish and secure yourself into a relationship, the process can't be rushed.  It's going to take as long as it is going to take, and trying to hurry things along won't make an iota of difference.

Which I guess means that the concept of creating memories is going to take a fair amount of time too - two people come together with pretty much no idea of who the other was pre-meeting, and there's a process there too - of learning about the others history, and trying to piece together a past that you might be completely unfamiliar with.

But with lots of talking, and meeting of friends, and poring over photograph albums, you can usually get a better picture of the person who existed before you knew they did.  And on top of that history, you get to add some shared stuff.

And so, with each passing day - and date - or conversation, or shared experience, a little history is made.  You start having ''remember when'' conversations.  You start to create a frame of reference that includes the start of your relationship.  Until finally there is a present which is real, and burgeoning with possibility.  And eventually the sum of those experiences start to create a past that you both shared in.

How awesome is that:)