(That's nine years ago, for all of you non-Abraham-Lincoln types.)
Chip and I are celebrating our ninth anniversary today. Traditionally, that would mean gifts of pottery or willow (willow?) all around, but since I forgot to check that handy site until just now when blogging about traditional gifts, I guess we're right out of luck. (Damn, though, because I totally could have gotten creative with the Willow thing and gone with the seven-season DVD series of Buffy, although it would be pretty obvious whose gift that would actually be.) Chip was wonderful enough to skip the modern gift of leather in favor of the even more modern gift of "gift certificate to that great online store whose clothes I love but can't seem to justify buying for myself, also known as IGIGI."
He's a keeper, that one.
For those of you who don't know already, Chip and I met while touring Europe in college in 1993. It's much less romantic than it sounds because we were chaperoning a bunch of high school students on a choir tour led by Chip's uncle. We did not start dating then, because who finds their ardor stoked by 50 teenagers who all want to know where the nearest church bathroom is and whether Austrian money can be used in Germany? (True confession: I was a teenager at the time, though clearly very worldly and sophisticated at 19. Right.) Even without the dating, though, I knew that there was something between us. Within just a couple of weeks or so we were already finishing each other's sentences.
But it wasn't to be, since Chip was living in California and I was living in Montana. We knew better than to start a long-distance relationship. Those never work.
Fast-forward to December 1994, when Chip came to visit me in Missoula. He was out of college and working, I was still working on college. His visit coincided with the annual Residence Life holiday party, and I was thrilled that I would have a date, even if it was "just friends."
There is some disagreement about who kissed who first on the dance floor that night, but suffice it to say that I'm pretty damn glad that it happened. With that kiss we embarked on a three-year, long-distance relationship that would take us back to Europe, to graduate school in entirely separate regions of the country, to New England--where the 90 miles between Amherst and New Haven seemed like a gift from the gods after enduring the previous thousands--and finally to Great Falls, Montana, where we got married on July 18, 1998. We haven't spent much time apart since then, and that's the way I like it.
Happy anniversary, my love. We've got a ways to go before we reach the dizzying heights of our parents--my parents will hit 40 years in September, and Chip's reach that milestone the following year--but I expect it will fly by just as quickly as our first near-decade as a married couple has. Here's to the next nine and beyond.