Tag: anniversary
Amy and I are celebrating our 29/26/23rd anniversary today.
It’s the summer solstice, which is a special day for us.
29 years ago we officially started dating.
26 years ago we declared ourselves married (and eloped.)
23 years ago we signed an official piece of paper that was witnessed at the Boulder County Clerk’s Office because it was a pain in the ass to not be officially married.
When I reflect on the last 29 years of my life, it’s been a remarkable experience to get to share it with Amy. When we started dating, I was 24 years old. I lived in Boston. I was running my first company. I lived in a 24,000 cubic foot loft. I was struggling through a divorce, a failed Ph.D. experience, and a very stressful software consulting company, that, while performing well, consumed 100 hours a week of me.
As I sit typing this at age 53, at our place in Aspen, after dropping Amy off for the day at the Aspen Ideas Festival, the last 29 years have taken us to a place neither of us anticipated, planned, or expected.
For me, that’s the beauty of this relationship. I’m fortunate to have a number of very close friends who I have deep emotional intimacy with. But I only have one person who, as Amy likes to say, “shares certain things” with me, which includes a depth of love, trust, intimacy, curiosity, frankness, truth, emotion, and joy.
Amy – you are my beloved. Thank you for sharing the journey on this planet with me. I look forward to at least doubling all of those numbers in the title of this post with you.
Happy Anniversary Amy.
We’ve been together for 27 years and we’ve been married for 24 of them.
It amazes me that you put up with me.
I look forward to spending as many years together as we get on this planet. And, if we are lucky, some technology will get created before we vanish that allows us to spend infinity together, although I’m not sure I’d wish me on you for infinity.
My parents have been married for 54 years today. That’s 19,710 days. Mom / Dad – happy anniversary!
Your relationship is an inspiration to me. You have set an incredible example of a full and equal partnership that I know has deeply influenced my approach to my marriage with Amy. I also know that it has inspired many others.
Thank you. Congratulations. And Dad, it’s pretty cool to see a photo of you with hair.
Lots of people get married on the summer solstice. To all of them – including those getting married today – congrats and welcome to the club!
It’s a particularly sweet club on your 21st anniversary if you are a numerophile, which is a word that Amy and I just made up that describes people who love numbers. And blackjack. And Dragons. And Daenerys – what a serious badass she is. And Arya also. But I digress. Can you tell that we recently figured out how to watch the Game of Thrones season finale up in Homer?
21 years ago Amy and I woke up and decided to get married. We were on vacation in Alaska, hanging out in Fairbanks at the time. Amy grew up there so she loved to point out all the things that were completely unchanged since she was a child. We took her mom and her nephew Drew out for Drew’s birthday breakfast at Sourdough Sam’s, which was one of those unchanged places. Her mom asked what we were doing that day and we turned to each other and said “getting married.”
Yup – we eloped.
We went to the Pay-N-Save and bought six rings for $1.19 (we still have them). We then drove up to the top of Ester Dome. I took out a piece of paper and wrote the word “VOWS” on it twice. I tore the paper in half and gave half of it to Amy so we each had vows to exchange. We each grabbed one of the rings. Amy recited the traditional marriage ceremony. We exchanged VOWS and rings, hugged, and kissed. And that was it.
It feels like yesterday. Well, not really. But it’s been amazing. We’ve had our ups and downs, including nearly getting divorced (which I recount at the beginning of our book Startup Life: Surviving and Thriving in a Relationship with an Entrepreneur (I know you see what I did there, Brad-the-book-salesman.) We moved from Boston to Boulder in 1995 and never looked back. We thought briefly about moving to Homer, Alaska but decided instead to buy a house up here and spend a month each summer up here.
As I sit on the couch in our house in Homer, two feet away from the person I love spending time with more than anyone else on this planet, I feel so lucky that I’ve found someone to spend my life with who understands me. Who puts up with me. Who treasures me. Who holds me when I’m down. Who celebrates with me, but also keeps me humble and chases all the bullshit out of my life. Who is my biggest fan and staunchest defender. Who is always there for me no matter what.
And – who I feel exactly the same way about. Amy – you are awesome. Thank you for being you. And for putting up with me.
20 years. Just amazing. You are my favorite person on this planet. Here are some pictures from the past 20 years.
Fashion has clearly never been my strong sense.
Fortunately, my t-shirts are rubbing off on you.
And your class and grace is rubbing off on me.
But you can never really take the girl out of Alaska.
And one never really does leave Wellesley, does one?
I love you.
Amy – we have been married for 19 years today. Some of our friends chose today to get married such as my partner Seth and his wife Greeley. Other close friends are celebrating anniversaries, including Fred and Joanne (25th yesterday) and my parents (49th a few days ago). We are in good company even though we are still newlyweds compared to them. And, as a bonus, 19 is a prime number as is the sum of the digits of the date (06/21/2012).
When I reflect on my life, getting married to you is the best decision I’ve ever made. The great moments – which are frequent – are awesome. When we have issues we always work through them. And figuring out why we had the issue in the first place makes us better partners.
I’m your biggest fan, and I know you are mine. I can’t imagine tackling things like doing a marathon in every state without your support. I’d never be able to sustain the pace of my work if I didn’t know you were there for me. The victories and celebrations are so much sweeter since I get to share them with you.
Whenever I’ve been down, broken, defeated, or depressed, you’ve always been a safe person for me to be with. You listen when I need to talk, and you let me hang out in my man cave when I need to be alone. You know what makes me tick better than any other human on this planet and never make me do things I hate. As a bonus, you do things you hate, like clean up the dog poop when accidents happen, since you know how devastatingly difficult it would be for me to have to deal with it.
Last summer we got to spend 60 days in a row together – the longest stretch we’d ever been together so far in our life. It made me want to spend even more time with you and I’m having such a blast spending the whole summer with you this year.
I can’t imagine life without you. I love you and look forward to many more anniversaries together.