It was three years ago today that Jenny and I were married. I suppose this is a reasonable occasion to note that my time with Jenny — which really began in the spring, summer or fall of 2001, depending on how you count — has been the happiest and most successful period of my life.
When Jenny and I first hooked up, our lives were in disarray. Jenny had been laid off from her dot-com job and would soon move back in with her parents in LA while she tried to work out some way to leave the country for a while. Meanwhile, I had been planning to move to Seattle with my previous girlfriend, and somehow it was obvious to neither of us that we needed to change this plan now that we’d broken up, she’d fallen in love with a new guy who happened to live in Seattle, and I’d fallen in love with our soon-to-be ex-roommate. So when Jenny left town, I had nebulous plans to start life over again in Seattle, she had plans to go teach English maybe in Latin America somewhere, and we sort of hoped we’d meet again in a couple of years.
And then one day it dawned on me that rather than moving to Seattle to help my ex-girlfriend set up a lovenest for herself and her new man, I could instead follow Jenny to whatever odd corner of the earth she was headed for.
It’s a cliché, but at that moment I felt a tremendous weight lifting, as if someone took away a vast burden I hadn’t realized I was carrying. Deciding to go away with Jenny was a big step, transforming our relationship from a tenuous what-if to a decidedly major commitment. But I knew Jenny would say yes when I asked if she wanted me along, and I knew it would work out. Going abroad with Jenny instead of moving to Seattle with my ex-girlfriend is the single cleverest idea I’ve ever had.
The weight that lifted that day has never returned. Life has had its ups and downs — indeed, life with shy, quiet li’l Jenny is quite the roller-coaster ride — but no matter what has happened, I’ve always been sure that at least one big part of my life is exactly right.
I love you, Jenny. Thank you for the best years of my life and for the promise of many more. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I’m just enormously pleased that it’s gonna keep happening. This marriage thing is one hell of a deal!