Yesterday, I did one of those Facebook things that pulls all the words from your posts and tells you which one you use the most. Although I hadn’t even considered the word it pulled, it didn’t surprise me.

Time.

I talk about time a lot. “Sometimes,” or “That time,” or “Remember the time…” I write about moments, and the importance of noting and living in them. I’m kind of a time advocate, it seems, in an age of time waste.

When our kids were little (and like so many other children), they called this weekend’s holiday “Valentime’s Day.” This morning, before I got out of bed, I was thinking about all of this in conjunction with my marriage. As I lay there, curled up next to my husband with my ear against his chest, I wondered how many of his heartbeats I’ve listened to over the years. How many mornings have found me in that same place, borrowing warmth from what radiates off his skin?

This year will find us celebrating 33 years of marriage, and 35 years as a couple. That’s 18,396,000 minutes we’ve laid claim to one another. Over 18 MILLION minutes of making and collecting memories together, laughing over private jokes, arguing and making up. 18 MILLION minutes of diapers and feedings, school programs, PTA, and carpool, sports, music, dance, and horse shows, graduation and college tuition. 18 MILLION minutes of joy and sorrow, trials, and triumph, adult children and grandchildren.

18 MILLION units of time…and 34 Valentine’s Days together.

It will be a quiet celebration, as it usually is. We don’t go in for a lot of hoopla over this day set aside for lovers, unless you count noting the moments, considering the collected memories, and dreaming about making more. Because, for us, it really IS Valentime’s Day…a day to realize anew that we would choose each other as our Valentine time after time after time.