As a kid I loved looking at my parents’ wedding album—a faux wood finished ringed album with rounded edge photos stuck down with a plastic sheet covering them. In the back of that album is this yellowed piece of paper covered front and back with my dad’s near illegible left handed handwriting. Looking closer at this page and you see things like “1983, Eleventh: Manitou Springs, Colorado: Taco John’s for lunch, played penny arcade, skeeball. Found a house to buy”. That house was 1414 E. 9Th Street in Pueblo, CO where my sister & I shared a room with Kirk Cameron posters on the walls and my brothers and I built tree houses. It was a quirky house with a trapdoor down to a basement and a loft that we converted into a library. That one line entry brings up a whole year of memories.
This is my dad’s journal of their marriage—he’s written down what they did to celebrate every year they passed and on Saturday they hit the 40 mark. 40 years married! Can you believe that? And they’re still wildly, passionately in love. The most recent entry reads, “Train trip to California. Dinner with family – we dance while band plays “The Way You Look Tonight.” Trip to Catalina Island with Amber.”
My dad is a total romantic and I’ve always loved that he did this. So much so that I started the same tradition when I got married 11 years ago and just last week I wrote our 11 year journal entry. It’s fun to read back over the years and remember what we did to celebrate each year and to read the highlights (both happy & sad) of the year.
I know while you’re planning your wedding you think that you’ll remember every romantic moment that you and your beloved have, but trust me when I say that time flies and you forget. I forgot to write 2009 and I still can’t remember what we did.
Try it. Write down your anniversaries—whether on a piece of copy paper like my dad, or your wedding guestbook like I did. 40 years down the road you’ll be happy you kept track.
Happy Anniversary, Mom & Dad!
