Perhaps I can imagine what we look like from above a little family so simple, so easy, so right

“I love you,” he says, simply, shrugging his arm over my shoulder and pulling me closer to him. We’re sitting in the middle of the beach, dogs kicking sand wildly with their feet and children laughing all around us, an airplane soaring overhead. I remember just weeks ago when I was the one in the sky looking down at this exact shore, smiling in my window seat at the dogs like mini black and brown and white ants, chasing after Frisbees and jumping through the waves. They looked so happy from above; their lives so easy. Just watching them made me want to cry at the simplicity of it all.⠀
⠀
My boyfriend’s son starts yelling and chasing after his dog, the sand kicking up around both of their feet. I watch them as they sprint past, watch all the people around me in various stages of life and happiness and suddenly realize that I am one in the mix of them. I am one of the specks barely visible from 30,000ft.⠀
⠀
I turn back to my boyfriend, study the line of his jaw, the stubble just poking through his freshly shaven face. I will myself to memorize his smile, the sun poking through the clouds, the sounds of his son’s footsteps and the barking of his dog—all slivers of a world that’s slowly becoming mine, regardless of the plane rides between us.⠀
⠀
I close my eyes and lean into his shoulder again, my heartbeat steady and slow. Perhaps I can’t make this moment last forever, can’t write it into my memory permanently, but I can try. I can remember the softness of the sand between my toes, the sun on my bare face, the dog slobber and his son’s laughter and ‘I love yous’ whispered into the late afternoon breeze.