Marking a Marriage Milestone

Over the Summer, Janna and I were thrilled to spend another married year together as we celebrated our anniversary.  Our marriage is the number one greatest achievement of my life.  Sharing your life with someone is a massive challenge and every single day the relationship changes and re-breathes and moves again in sometimes unimaginable ways as once expressed in — Promise Before Dying — published in Urban Semiotic on July 18, 2005:

Then she asked me if I would bury her under a tree with shade when she died.

I promised her I would.

Then she asked me if I would bury her under a tree with shade that had leaves that change colors in the Fall from red to purple to orange.

I promised her I would.

This year’s anniversary was different from all the rest because it marked an important milestone for us.  We realized we had finally been married longer than we had been single.  It was a magnificent moment of reflection because it created an undeniable timeline of shared understanding that immediately made us greater as one than we ever were apart.

We have stood together, and by each other, through tough times and glorious days and it has been a tremendous honor to know that, no matter what, we will always be bound by our experience and shaped by our passion for each other.

I’ll leave you with a bit of — Eleven Heart-Shaped Balloons — also published in Urban Semiotic, on February 15, 2006 as more proof of why I love Janna Marie Sweenie:

He pointed to the balloons and then to his dollar. She finally understood he wanted to buy a balloon from her and she felt a little insulted he was trying to pay her for an act of kindness.

Janna used her voice and said to the guy, “I don’t want your money. If you want a balloon, you can have a balloon.”

She untied one of her helium hearts and handed it to him as he again tried to give her a dollar. She took his hand in hers, crumpled the dollar bill back into his fist and pressed his hand away and wished him a happy Valentine’s Day.

Here’s to the next anniversary, and the next, and the next, until we’ve been married twice as long, and then three times as long, and then… and then… as we ever lived apart.