It’s been one of those years where our wedding anniversary took me by surprise. We’ve been so busy with, well, life. Between work and middle school, band practice and fundraisers. Between extended family obligations and the holidays, the time just slipped away. When we were planning our wedding 16 years ago, it never occurred to us that the week of Christmas might be a busy week. How young and naive we were, standing at the alter making a million promises to each other that neither knew whether we could actually uphold. But, as we squeal into year fifteen, our tires hot and sticky, those early years seem less important. Those terrible decisions, those dumb spats, and ill-timed events. It all sort of fades away and you begin to focus on what you’ve accomplished together and on the life you made. And it’s a pretty good one over here.

We’ve made a warm home. A spectacular kid.

We’ve made big decisions that led to big successes.

We’ve made mistakes, so many mistakes.

We’ve made friends all over the place.

We’ve deepened connections, split ties, lost touch.

We’ve found who we are, who we were, who we want to be.

We’ve educated ourselves. We’ve stopped looking away.

We’ve learned to face challenges upfront, honest, and raw.

We’ve become great communicators.

We’ve been disappointed, in ourselves, and in others.

We’ve come to know this world, the people we want to surround ourselves with, and those we don’t.

We’ve established traditions and passed down bad habits.

We’ve argued and cried.

We’ve loved and lost.

We’ve loved.

So much love.

Fifteen is the year of crystal. We aren’t really “crystal” people, so we are skipping gifts this year in exchange for a quiet evening at home with our kid and our dogs. That’s our favorite place these days, and while that wasn’t an explicit promise we made fifteen years ago, spending as much time as we can together, is just another of those happy, little accidents in this unpredictable and lovely life that we’ve created.

Fifteen years of marriage. Twenty one years together. Still raising hell.

I love you more, Jerimiah.

M.