Adam Oster, Novelist

My wife and I have spent a long time battling the idea of age. As a simple note to prove this fact, the song we chose to be sung at our wedding reception was Bob Dylan’s Forever Young.

The truth is, our baker’s dozen plus one years of wedded bliss have been spent doing tons of childish things. We might have three kids, but it’s often the two of us who are looking for the next big fun thing to do, whether it’s through travel or just silly things like hanging out at the arcade in town.

We even like to get down to some of these goofy kid-like antics without our kids in tow. For instance, although we’ve taken our kids down to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida numerous times, some of my favorite memories at this bastion of theme parks happened before we even had children.

Like fourteen years ago when we were honeymooning in ‘The Most Magical Place on Earth’. Yeah, I’ll admit that it’s a little embarrassing to note how we, the coolest people on the planet, spent our first days as husband and wife in an amusement park based around the worship of a cartoon mouse. But I’m also embarrassed to admit that I’m wearing my Figment hoodie as I write this post, so…

Anyhoo.

We spent a lot of money on our honeymoon. I wanted to make it special, especially seeing as I was the one who really wanted to spend our first married days at a theme park, where my wife probably had something far more romantic in mind…like Vegas. In my attempts to up the romantic atmosphere, I set us up with a hotel with a savannah view, meaning that we would wake up and watch the zebras and giraffes eating their breakfast as we drank our coffee on our hotel room balcony. We went on a sunrise safari where we rode out among the animals before the park opened, getting the opportunity to get far closer to these creatures for far longer than would be allowed during the normal park operating hours.

And, we had dinner at the Chef’s Table at Victoria and Albert’s. Now, this probably means nothing to you. It really didn’t to me until my wife told me about it. As of right now, TripAdvisor lists it as the second best restaurant in the whole country. And they have a table in the kitchen where the head chef prepares a meal especially for you and their master sommelier pairs everything perfectly with wines which have far more interesting backstories than I could ever hope to have.

But, all of that is beside the point because the truly magical moment, the moment which will stick with me for forever, was after this incredibly exclusive (and expensive) fourteen course meal and nearly as many drinks, when we walked out into the courtyard of the hotel.

The Florida summer rain poured down upon us as we were dressed in our finest. And although we were getting soaked in clothes which weren’t exactly made for getting wet, we were both in this state of childlike bliss. We rain through the courtyard, giggling in amusement, before hiding out for a minute from the rain underneath a canopy. We knew the idea of hiding out was pointless as we were already drenched, but we stopped just briefly to enjoy the moment together. And as I looked at my newly minted wife, and she at me, we shared a beautiful kiss.

This wasn’t a kiss at sunset as the birds chirped in the cool breeze. It was the kiss of two half-drunk kids, dripping from head to toe with sweat and rain, as they ruined the nicest clothes they had.

And it was then that I knew we would never grow old together.

Because in our hearts, we’d never be old.

Now if only I could tell my knees this story.