18

Eighteen is an important number in Judaism – don’t ask me all the significance because learned I am not but I can tell you it’s Chai and symbolizes life, and you’ll often see Jews wearing the letter Chai around their neck for good luck.
Today, also happens to be my 18th, or chai, wedding anniversary.

I wanted to wax on poetic, write some moving tribute to my partner and best friend for these last eighteen years. You know the one who leaves the toilet seat up, never wipes up the pancake batter after he’s made breakfast for us on Saturday morning, never tosses out his paper cup after he’s brushed his teeth, but realized it’s easy to put into words all the little silly things he does that irk me but so much more difficult to come up with something original for the way he makes me feel.

So I think about Chris, and I think about these past 18 years and I think about life and good luck and I realize that more than eighteen years ago, I had the good luck to find someone with whom to share my life. Someone who makes me laugh, who challenges me to be better than I am, someone who supports me when I fall short of those challenges and someone with whom I cannot imagine my life without.
Sometimes, unbelievable, even to me, here we are, eighteen years later, still building our life together, merging our likes and dislikes, sharing our accomplishments, and our sorrows, realizing some dreams, while others fade away and still yet, creating new ones, but together.

It makes me smile to think about my favorite part of the day, when we climb into bed together (and wipe your dirty minds, I’m talking about the actual act of sleeping next to each other – can you believe we still spoon every night?), and knowing that it is his favorite part of the day too. It makes me sad to think about the losses we’ve endured together, both family and friends. It makes me hopeful though when I think of all the plans we still make, the trips to take, the parties to have, and for Chris, the marathons to run.

I think it takes a certain amount of luck, and faith to commit your life to someone else. Today I am profoundly happy that Chris chose to do that with me. So Happy Anniversary my love.