Five Years Today

Today is my wedding anniversary. Taking a page from Restaurant Gal, who just wrote a beautiful post about her son graduating from college, I wanted to take a moment to thank the woman I love for five wonderful years together.

I met my wife eleven years ago this month at a professional meeting (we both do the same kind of work). At the time, I had no idea my life would turn out the way it did. At that meeting, she led a workshop in which I was participating. We became friends and would see each other at meetings, finally getting together at a meeting in Fall of 2000. I moved to the DC area in February 2002 and we were married in May (hence the anniversary today).

Both my wife and I were married before. We say that anyone can get married, the challenge is staying married. I remember very clearly at the family dinner the night before we were married saying to the assembled group how happy I was. We were also taking the opportunity to celebrate my parent's 50 years together and I said that I hoped to be able to make that same mark. It was greeted with laughs, but my meaning was only that reaching 50 years would largely be a factor of time not of desire. The mind is willing but the bodies may not hold up. When you jump back into the wedding pool later in life, reaching such milestones become more challenging, but I'm committed to giving it a go.

As a guy, I used to find it difficult to define "love." The two of us were walking down a street one day and she stopped me, turned me toward her and told me, "Love is caring more about someone else, than you do yourself." I used to say, "I love you" in a previous life and not sure if I meant it, but no more. I love my wife more and more every day for her and my life is complete with her as a part of it. We have brought a new life into the world and he is a wonderful product of our love for each other. The fact that he looks a lot like her makes me love her all the more.

There are times when she and I will encounter other couples squabbling, bickering, or the like. My wife and I don't fight. She will say that we bicker occasionally, but I'll say she's wrong :) I will look at those other couples and think to myself, why are they doing that? Don't they know how great it is to be in love? Why can't everyone feel the way we do. It helps that neither my wife nor I can be mad at each other, the love is too strong.

So, today, as we celebrate one-tenth of my parent's mark, I thank my wife for her love, friendship, support, personality, and character. I am a very lucky man and I don't care who knows it, so that's why I'm sharing her with you.

Oh, and by the way, tonight is Game 5 for the Rangers and the Sabres. There's that heart and tradition thing again. Let's go Rangers.