When we stood together on our wedding day, I didn’t fully understand what marriage entailed. I simply knew you were my guy. My vision was wonderfully uncomplicated: have fun, build a family, make a lifetime of memories, and someday sit side by side in rocking chairs, smiling at stories only we would understand.

Well… we’ve crossed that finish line twenty-eight times now; the rocking chairs can wait. We’re still in the middle of the story.

What amazes me most… I don’t feel tired of you yet (LOL). I feel invigorated. Every year has been another lap, another chance to practice patience, resilience, laughter, and love. It turns out endurance isn’t something marriage magically gives you… it’s something you build together, one beautifully ordinary day at a time.

No instruction manual arrived on August 1, 1998, tucked inside an infamous Tiffany blue box, wrapped in a pristine white satin ribbon. And truthfully, no book could have prepared us for the life we would build or, more importantly, for the people we would become.

Of all the gifts you’ve given me over the years, the greatest has never fit in a box. You never asked me to shrink so our life could feel bigger. Instead, you gave me something infinitely rarer: a safe place to keep becoming. A place to evolve, question, wander, and write … not only in the Babe Cave but also in lakeside cabins and lovely apartments in Paris. To come home changed and still be welcomed with open arms. You never clipped my wings. You simply made sure I always had a place to land.

Granted… I take full responsibility for the excessive passport stamps. This year alone, we’ve wandered through Provence and Paris, escaped to Tamarindo simply because a banana cream pie was calling your name, climbed the Great Pyramid in Cairo, sipped white wine before riding camels through Wadi Rum in Jordan, and somehow convinced ourselves that walking across the border into Israel was a brilliant idea. It probably wasn’t, but it led us to that unforgettable suite at Six Senses in the Negev, where you unapologetically beat me at checkers while drinking Chablis and eating cheese pizza… a defeat I suppose I’ll graciously remember forever.

Most importantly, all our adventures taught us that we not only travel well together… but also do life well together.

Life has a way of reminding us that not every chapter unfolds as we imagined. Some quietly dissolve: the wedding venue at RT, the DeLuca’s deal that fizzled, and a handful of relational disappointments we saw coming. Somehow, looking back, the wins always seem to outnumber the losses. We have tended to the business of us remarkably well. Not perfectly, but steadily, faithfully, and intentionally, like true partners.

At this point, you’re probably thinking, “wrap it up” … she is surely finished. Rookie mistake. After all this time together, you still underestimate how many words live in my head. Give me a few more paragraphs; I promise I’ll eventually land the plane

Japan for my birthday with our adult man-children… may be one of my favorites. Not simply because of Kyoto’s magical cherry blossoms and Kobe’s tender beef, but because of who stood beside us as we wandered the country. Those same two little boys we tucked into bed after baths now live exactly 110 steps from our front door… door to door. Some of life’s greatest blessings, I am learning, somehow stay remarkably close.

Of all the miles we’ve traveled together over nearly three decades, those 110 steps may be my favorite distance of all. Watching them become good men who have built lives of their own yet still choose to build them beside us is a miracle I am grateful for daily.

Wait, then came Royal Ascot. Watching Green Carrera outrun a field of thirty horses was exhilarating enough. Seeing you in a top hat and tails – well, that memory has earned a permanent place in my heart. A couple of weeks later, we found ourselves standing again at the Del Mar Fair (one of our first dates), listening to Chicago sing Will You Still Love Me. My answer, all these years later, is still an enthusiastic YES.

Hold on, almost done… it has been an eventful year… and I would be terribly remiss if I didn’t acknowledge your second love. Tiffany, a vintage 1971 Ford Bronco.  Jackie and I have officially accepted our place in the hierarchy. After years of putting everyone else’s dreams ahead of your own, watching you finally splurge on something that simply brought you joy made me happy.

Finally, there we were.  Fireworks bursting over the lagoon on the Fourth of July, then resting my head on your shoulder, white knuckling riding down Jimmy Durante, on your trusty e-bike toward home…happy place…just us. And for a fleeting moment, I caught myself wondering if perhaps we’d entered that slower season of life everyone talks about.

Then I remembered…in two weeks, we will once again be opening the gates at Cohen Cottage for another horse soiree complete with dueling pianos, more than a hundred friends, and the kind of joyful chaos that somehow always finds us.

Apparently slowing down simply isn’t part of our story, truthfully…I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Over the years, I’ve realized the richest investment we’ve ever made wasn’t in things. It was in experiences… passport stamps instead of possessions, sunsets, and green flashes… family dinners of Caymus and Cardiff Crack… those moments are the architecture of our life together.

If someone had asked that twenty-four-year-old bride standing at the altar what she hoped marriage would become, I don’t think she could have imagined this life.

Not because it has been perfect, but because it has been so wonderfully, unexpectedly… ours.

Thank you for continuing to choose me and for never asking me to stop becoming. Thank you for helping us build a life where love was never measured by grand gestures, although I certainly don’t mind when Sven brings me coffee in the morning… now, twenty-eight years later, I know so much more about marriage than I did back then, but one thing hasn’t changed: you’re still my guy, and we are better together.

Here’s to more of us….!

Forever your girl,

SHC