Two Decades

Today is our twentieth wedding anniversary.  We’re celebrating by going out to dinner, to a restaurant I’ve been dying to try (The Admiral, in Asheville).  Dinner out doesn’t sound like much of a celebration, for such a landmark anniversary, but as anniversaries go, it’s about right for us.

We spent our wedding night doing laundry.  Really–we were up till 2 am.  Doing laundry.  And the cab arrived to take us to the airport for our honeymoon at, um, 5 am.  Later, when we got where we were going (the aptly named–for size, not inhabitants–Mosquito Island in the British Virgins), we met another honeymooning couple, and realized we’d come in on the same series of flights.  The woman suddenly recognized me:  “Oh!  I saw you in San Juan!  You were asleep on a bench in luggage claim!”  Yep.  That was me, all right.

We spent our first anniversary cleaning out the attic.  It was, like most attics a tiny, dark, airless space under the eaves of our apartment, accessed only by a pull-down ladder.  The downside of being a June bride?  If you ever want to spend your anniversary cleaning out the attic, you can count on it being hotter than hell.

There’ve been 18 anniversaries since then.  I don’t remember many specifics.  I do know we spent our tenth anniversary at my brother’s wedding rehearsal, so I guess that means they have a big anniversary tomorrow.

Other than that one celebration (which was obviously more about Chip and Catherine than us), we haven’t tended to make a big fuss over the date.  Once or twice I think there were flowers, and occasionally one or the other of us has a great idea for a gift, but gifts are really more of an exception than the norm at our house.  We’ve never done anything dramatic for an anniversary;  I think most years have involved some variation on the dinner-in-a-restaurant theme.  There were probably babies in tow in the early years, then sitters to pay during the elementary years.  It’s not such a production now, since they’re old enough to survive quite well without us.

But it’s still my favorite thing to do in the whole wide world.  Dinner with my person.  It’s all I need in life.

Happy Anniversary, my love.