When we stood together on our wedding day, I didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well\u2026 we\u2019ve crossed that finish line twenty-eight times now; the rocking chairs can wait. We\u2019re still in the middle of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What amazes me most\u2026 I don\u2019t 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\u2019t something marriage magically gives you\u2026 it\u2019s something you build together, one beautifully ordinary day at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of all the gifts you\u2019ve 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 \u2026 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Granted\u2026 I take full responsibility for the excessive passport stamps. This year alone, we\u2019ve 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\u2019t, 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\u2026 a defeat I suppose I\u2019ll graciously remember forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most importantly, all our adventures taught us that we not only travel well together\u2026 but also do life well together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019s 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<\/em> remarkably well. Not perfectly, but steadily, faithfully, and intentionally, like true partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At this point, you\u2019re probably thinking, \u201cwrap it up\u201d \u2026 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\u2019ll eventually land the plane\uf04a<\/p>\n\n\n\n Japan for my birthday with our adult man-children\u2026 may be one of my favorites. Not simply because of Kyoto\u2019s magical cherry blossoms and Kobe\u2019s 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\u2026 door to door. Some of life\u2019s greatest blessings, I am learning, somehow stay remarkably close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of all the miles we\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u2013 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. <\/em>My answer, all these years later, is still an enthusiastic YES.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hold on, almost done\u2026 it has been an eventful year\u2026 and I would be terribly remiss if I didn\u2019t 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\u2019s dreams ahead of your own, watching you finally splurge on something that simply brought you joy made me happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2026happy place\u2026just us. And for a fleeting moment, I caught myself wondering if perhaps we\u2019d entered that slower season of life everyone talks about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then I remembered\u2026in 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apparently slowing down simply isn\u2019t part of our story, truthfully\u2026I wouldn\u2019t have it any other way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the years, I\u2019ve realized the richest investment we\u2019ve ever made wasn\u2019t in things. It was in experiences\u2026 passport stamps instead of possessions, sunsets, and green flashes\u2026 family dinners of Caymus and Cardiff Crack\u2026 those moments are the architecture of our life together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If someone had asked that twenty-four-year-old bride standing at the altar what she hoped marriage would become, I don\u2019t think she could have imagined this life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not because it has been perfect, but because it has been so wonderfully, unexpectedly\u2026 ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019t mind when Sven brings me coffee in the morning\u2026 now, twenty-eight years later, I know so much more about marriage than I did back then, but one thing hasn\u2019t changed: you\u2019re still my guy, and we are better together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s to more of us\u2026.!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Forever your girl,<\/p>\n\n\n\n SHC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When we stood together on our wedding day, I didn\u2019t 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\u2026 we\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,68,42,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anniversary","category-magic-moments","category-marriage","category-reflection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1513,"href":"http:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511\/revisions\/1513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prolificpreambles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}