Not long after I moved in with Jessica, she said to me, “I never knew you talked this much.” Today we celebrate twenty years of her patiently listening to me ramble and rant about everything from art to politics to that jackass behind me at the grocery store who kept bumping me with their cart. Every friend I have, especially anyone who knew me pre-Jessica, has asked me at some point after getting to know her, “How did you convince her to choose you?” And I honestly don’t know, but I’m more grateful she chose me every single day that passes.
Twenty years covers a lot of territory, and there aren’t words big enough to adequately describe how much I love my wife. But I can tell you that I love her more deeply and more completely today than I did in the days leading us to here. Every day I am overwhelmed with gratitude that she is part of my life. Some days I wonder if she’s going to suffocate me in my sleep (not that she’s volatile, just that I’m a lot). If she does one day, I will have deserved it. She has more patience and kindness for me than anyone I’ve ever known. She has more forgiveness for me than anyone I’ve ever known. She’s that way with the children too. She loves them as unconditionally as she loves me. In my whole life, no one has ever offered me unconditional love like Jessica has, and it changed everything for the better.
A short and very incomplete list of things that make me love Jessica more every day:
- We still haven’t stopped learning things about each other.
- She makes me laugh. Not always on purpose, but it counts.
- She laughs at my jokes, even the really bad ones.
- Her eyes are the most perfect blue I’ve ever seen.
- She has a special smile just for me.
- Her eyes sparkle when she smiles.
- Her dimples. I just love her dimples. I do the dumbest things just to make her smile so I can see them.
- Those little crinkles around her eyes when she smiles are really amazing too.
- The way she gets excited about organizing her cross stitching threads is super geektastic.
- She is so damn smart. I’ve never met anyone smarter than her. It’s insanely sexy.
- She is genuinely kind.
- Being with her makes me want to be the best version of myself, because she deserves the best.
- Even after all these years, she still gives me butterflies.
And since the slideshows I made for her a few years back have disappeared mysteriously, I’m rebuilding them here with a few new photos. You should know that there’s a lot of photos here, about 500, ranging from when we met in 1990 to now. They’re sort of chronological.
This first set of photos is from film and covers from 1990 to about 2003.
This set of photos is from about 2004 to 2007.
This set is from about 2007 to 2011.
This group is through around 2016.
This last set are photos from around 2017 until now.
Here’s to our first twenty years, and to our next twenty. Happy Anniversary to my Jessica.
Love,
Your Amanda
