It makes me old to say it, he said. But look at us. We were so young. We weren’t who we’d be yet.

And in the snotty, brillo-pad-swallowing fog, it made perfect sense. Justin and I had retreated to bed early, both crippled with playschool-variety colds and sore throats, and sat with a picture of us circa 1996.

In it, we are less than a day’s drive from home, off to find our fortunes after meeting a year before and graduating university. We bought our first car and packed it full, driving west because we’d never gone in that direction before. Wearing matching Bouctouche dinner jackets, thinking we were tongue-in-cheek but really just being gaggingly cute, the two of us.

My resume may as well have been the following, in the middle of a blank piece of paper — Kate ‘God’s Gift’ Robson, B.P.R.

100% vaccuous, but brimming with an institutionally-bred sense of entitlement. It’s the only public relations degree in the country! And it’s mine. Convinced that charm, arrogance and three letters made up for lack of experience. About to be unceremoniously dropped into the software industry blender and then pulverized into a pulpy, quivering mass.

Justin was competent, ready, perfectly suited. But for what? Details, details. Somehow I always knew something waited for him — and it did. On his second day as a ski patroller, a thirteen-year-old boy died in his arms. He came home affected but calm, and that was the beginning of him.

Remember that one-room apartment in Whitehorse? The fridge used to keep us awake.

It was late October in the Yukon, four feet of snow on the ground, and everything fell through. We went to the library, chose the fattest newspaper off the shelf and decided to cut our losses in favour of that city: Vancouver. The following decade was a blur of growth disguised as both turmoil and fun… skiing and mountains and mentors and kayaks and currents and an impossible learning curve and that feeling of satisfaction that settles over you when you’ve made a place Yours.

Are we boring? he whispers in the darkness. I thought he'd been asleep. The occupants of my belly tossed and turned, and I was wrapped up in the fruitless pursuit of a comfortable position.

We’re just busy, I reply, after a long think.

I’d hug you, but then I’d get all hot, he says.

Uh-huh, I smile though he can’t see, full of affection and agreement. And then we sleep.

Are you boring, compared to the giggling, self-timer-picture-taking, freedom-filled days of your past? Does knowing it haunt you? Or are you content to coast on the fumes of your hipness?