An Anniversary
I didn’t start off intending to write about my anniversary. I had other plans for the evening. Plans that generally didn’t involve being sad, crying or going over list upon list of things that are different. There have been a lot of days that haven’t gone as planned in recent times.
Next week as I write this, would have been my wedding anniversary. This year would have marked the 31st year that Beck and I would have been together, but then the round number anniversaries were always times when something big went down.
I couldn’t remember what happened at our 5th anniversary for the longest time, but I actually think that was the year we bought our house. A large expense and definitely a positive and worthy thing to have going on around our special day.
Then there was our 10th. We thought that we should do something special for number ten. Maybe take a special trip, maybe make an extravagant purchase but something to celebrate a nice, round milestone. That was when Beck told me she was pregnant. Super positive, amazing thing for the tenth and definitely not time for traveling or making purchases that didn’t relate to all things baby.
Fifteen is the one, right? I mean it’s not a ten or a twenty, but fifteen is definitely a respectable time to celebrate. We started figuring out what we wanted, where we thought we might go, how travel would work with the kiddo… and Beck landed in the hospital. Her health had been ‘bumpy’ since giving birth and this was just one step of many on our long journey through the health system.
Fine. Twenty. A big deal to make it that far. Kiddo would be old enough that arrangements would be easier, we were more mature in our spending choices but we could still come up with something. This was going to be a great thing! It was going to be BIG! And then I got laid off and was out of work for three months. No money for celebrations. We’ll definitely do something for the twenty-fifth. Twenty five is a full quarter of a century!
Twenty five rolled around. Silver anniversary. We were making plans. It was going to “be a thing”. We were cautiously optimistic, but we could make it work. We had dealt with fifteen years of health issues but we seemed to have those in hand. The kiddo was older now and understood what it meant for Beck and I to go and do a special thing. We were going to make this happen! And then everything shut down because of the pandemic. Nobody was going anywhere. Hunker down and hope you survive.
Last year was number thirty. That’s the ‘pearl’ anniversary if you’re interested in the traditional gifts or labels. Thirty was a struggle. Beck had had a stroke, then another. She struggled to walk. She was slightly off, even on good days. There was no plan. We made it to the little restaurant at the end of the street for a dinner that she only ate half of, then we came right back home. I didn’t complain about it. What was the sense in that? We were together and that was the part that mattered. Big deal celebrations never seemed to be something that worked out for us. It was the last time we had a ‘romantic’ dinner out together.
That’s the round number problem. Did we wait for those round numbers? Absolutely not. That’s something we got right. If we had an opportunity to go do a thing, take a trip or celebrate being together or being a family that’s what we did. We started to get a sense of the round numbers thing so we did a really big anniversary trip for our 24th. It didn’t make any sense to others, but we had an amazing, wonderful, memorable trip. It was such a fantastic thing that will live in my memory forever.
Next week… I don’t know how I’ll navigate it. We never really got into making a big deal of the day itself. We would always recognize it. We always did something but the most important thing was that we did it together. I don’t have that this year for the first time in more than half of my life. It’s a Wednesday, and I have to work, but then what? I don’t know.
Don’t hesitate. Tell people you love them. Give an extra hug. Go on that trip you’ve been putting off. It matters.