On our third anniversary...

July 7, 2007

Today Brandon and I celebrate our third wedding anniversary. But sometimes I think it is silly to remember only the last three years when really Brandon has shaped the last ten. He met me before I was confident enough to believe someone would want to date me. He knew me before I had decided who I wanted to be. Brandon loved me from the beginning and has made my life better because of it.

Before Brandon met me he had other loves: the San Francisco Giants, The Simpsons, music, movies and pugs. These things are sacred to him. These are the things that I cannot question or challenge. If I had been a Dodger fan, this whole relationship would never have started. I have pushed the envelope on some of these... he has even (reluctantly) agreed that our first dog could be a lab. He allows me to watch "crappy" movies and listen to "bad" music. But I knew he loved me (or at least liked me a lot) very early when he lent me his Gin Blossoms CD-- music that til this day still gives me butterflies as I think about the first weeks of our relationship. A man who loves his music doesn't part with CDs that easily. If Brandon knew then how good I was at losing CDs, I am pretty sure he would never have lent them to me in the first place.

Brandon put up with me leaving the country when I decided to live in Spain for 10 months. I returned the favor (with much less grace) when he moved to Colorado to pursue his career. I am independent, strong and opinionated. He has never asked me to be anything different.

In the last three years we have started jobs, lost jobs, endured financial struggle and personal struggle. We have argued a little, laughed a lot. Since we got married we have watched the entire series of LOST, The West Wing, The Gilmore Girls, Sports Night, Firefly and half of The Simpsons. Now we are tackling The Office. Last December we bought a house in a suburban neighborhood where we could raise a family. In May we found out that our family would double by this December.

On our first anniversary I locked us out of the house on a night when it was still 95 degrees at 10pm. He gave me a journal for us to write about our lives together. On our second anniversary we walked the streets of San Francisco and he gave me a camera lens so I could document our lives in photos. This year for our third anniversary he gave me a leather bound book of children's stories, so that in this next year of our marriage, we could introduce to our babies the tales of magic and mystery that we have both loved since our own childhood.

Happy Anniversary Meshugga! I love you.