The Big Two-Oh.

On a Friday the 13th, twenty years ago today--or twenty years ago, less about six hours from now--Melissa Madsen and I were married in Salt Lake City, Utah. I've commemorated our anniversary as the years have gone by several times here on the blog, so there's probably not much more worth saying on this particular occasion. Twenty years is a pretty momentous anniversary, though, so I suppose I ought to try to come up with something. Let me keep it brief:
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say,
"I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"--
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.
Except my own expressions to Melissa don't fit Browning's recommendations here at all; I'm constantly coming up with reasons for why I find her so funny, so attractive, so intelligent, so supportive, so sexy, so forgiving, etc. Maybe I can try again?

"You're the best friend / that I ever had / I've been with you such a long time / You're my sunshine"--yeah, that works pretty well. But how about just this? As I put it exactly ten years ago:
I think that perhaps the most important reason we had a good beginning was the fact that we were both ready to begin. We were in love, yes; we had our families behind us, true; we had some good plans and goals and some sense of how to achieve them, absolutely. But I think, most crucially, we were settled on what we were doing. Forget about this single life stuff. A pox on the dating scene. To hell with being at loose ends. We wanted to be committed, stuck together, sealed, put on the path and pushed out the door. And we were.
Happy anniversary, Melissa. See you here in 2033, deal?