23 years.

How lucky I am to have met this man. To have decided – finally – to take a risk and open myself up to the possibility of a healthy relationship. To face all my fears about commitment; feeling smothered by the ‘demands’ of another person, losing my independence, worries that I’d be bored by that person within six months. I’ve never felt smothered. I’ve not lost my independence. And I’ve never been bored by Don Sparks.

He is everything I dreamed of and more.

Thank you, sweetheart, for asking me to marry you. Thank you for everything you are. Thank you for the most joyful and wonderful years of my life. Thank you for 27 years together, 23 of them in official wedded bliss.

Stay safe.

Happy Tuesday.

Fourth, Schmourth – there’s only one event on we celebrate here; we met each other on this date 27 years ago. We’ve been together 27 years! For many of you, that’s nothing, but considering the fact that we were both in our early forties, it’s a big deal.

Our first conversation was all about our disbelief that we were in our forties! Fast forward to today and we realize once again that we were young  then. I’m now older than my mother was on July 4, 1994. She was about to turn 66.

Anyway, you’ve heard the story before. We were smitten, we flirted, Rick was there and observed some of that first interaction, at the end of the day we did indeed “see fireworks” when we watched them on the beach. I went home that night thinking of Don. He says he was feeling highly attracted to me, or to use his word: lust.

I had no idea, of course, that he would turn out to be the love of my life. I just knew I wanted to run into him again at the theater. And in true high school girl fashion, I engineered more than a few “how nice to bump into you!” meetings. Eventually, when our schedules opened up a bit, we had our first date – at the beach. Before that, though, there was the time he drove me home from an opening night party (where my wallet had been stolen) and kissed me on the steps to my apartment.

Oh boy. I was a goner.

We consider this day to be our most important anniversary. Four years later, on the Fourth of July, Don proposed.

Lucky me!

Have a Happy Fourth of July.

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.