20 Years

I’ve been trying to keep all of my blog entries as positive, uplifting stories. There’s been a lot of good things that have happened since my last blog entry. However, My 20th wedding anniversary trumps them all.

Tuesday, May 27th was my 20th wedding anniversary. This was the first anniversary since getting the family all back under the same roof. For the last four years, I was working in the bay area while Kelley and Sunny were living in our house in Eagle, Idaho. Last summer, we sold the Idaho house and moved into the California apartment, before ultimately moving to the Seattle area last November.

On my 18th wedding anniversary, one of my friends noted that 18 years was a long time, and asked me what our secret was. At the time, living mostly apart, I made a joke, “separate addresses.” But, to be honest after thinking about the question later, I didn’t have a succinct answer to that question. Even more honestly, I didn’t have a verbose long winded answer either.

This year, an example came to me in an odd form. Some background: this year, my favorite hockey team since I was 8 years old, the New York Rangers, are in the Stanley Cup finals. On Tuesday, the 27th, the Rangers were up 3-1 in the conference finals, and could win the series with a win in Montreal. Coincidentally, the Rangers haven’t been to the finals since 1994, the year that Kelley and I were married (another funny story for another time). Its more than fair to say, Kelley is not a hockey fan.

I came home from work, and wanted to watch the game. Kelley mentioned that it was our anniversary, to which I went into the history above. Kelley then said that it was OK for me to watch the game, which led me to think that she was going to go into another room and watch a movie, do some scrap booking, or something else that she found enjoyable. But, that’s not what happened.

She sat down in the recliner next to mine, and watched the game. During the commercials and intermissions, we talked about things other than hockey. During the game we talked about the game. This wasn’t what she wanted to do, but she took part fully. We watched till the end of the game, which NY lost 7-5.

As I look back over the last 20 years, this has been a theme of our marriage. We’ve done a lot of things separately, much to our friends’ surprise sometimes. But, we’ve done a lot of those same things together more than just occasionally. Whether its been Mary Kay, Chargers’ and Panthers’ games, other sports, chess, scrap booking, ham radio, sign language, dutch oven cooking, or tech projects of all sorts, we’ve found a way to make space for the other to do these activities, and we’ve often participated in the other’s activities in supportive ways.

Each time, I think it has made us a little stronger as a couple

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