Nine Years

Nine years ago today, Emily and I began our journey together as a married couple. That journey has comprised so many journeys and adventures – mental, emotional and actual travel. In the course of nine years we traveled around the world for our first year; took turns in our careers; had two babies; bought our first home – and then our second; went to France in Emily's second trimester with Sennen; took a 15-month-old to Patmos; and then took two kids to Hong Kong, Singapore, Bali twice and Thailand twice before the current trip to Israel and Greece.

Along the way, we've transitioned cars, jobs, au pairs, smartphones, laptops, schools and a few mortgages. We've had some dinner parties, taken on hosting a few holidays at our house, celebrated milestone birthdays, mourned some losses, fought, made up, passed out on the sofa, kvetched, adored our children, been exasperated by our children, dealt with a lot of bodily fluid and function issues, celebrated our friends and family (most recently our niece Bailey who was Bat Mitzvahed in Israel and my cousin Amy who got married!!!), visited the emergency room a few times, learned about deductibles, bought a boat, taken risks, waded through anxiety, worked hard, relaxed and built an amazing life together. 

This is especially hard to argue writing from my favorite restaurant and organic farm in Patmos – Aegean 70 feet away after having just enjoyed some of the best "cheese from our farm" (as the menu says), eggplant and olive oil this world has to offer. If we do anything well, it's coming up with a vision and working together to turn it into a reality.

I am so blessed to have found someone with whom I so strongly share values and who is a teammate in the adventure of life. Love is essential to a good marriage – and I love Emily beyond measure – but partnership is the brick and mortar of a Life. And amazingly, we have that in spades.

I don't think we're unique, but I think we're at least on the high end of the spectrum of maintaining equality in our relationship and how we tackle the tasks of life. We may take on slightly different tasks, but we both work in the same measure to take care of our children, parent, shoulder our responsibilities, look to the future and care for our important relationships with family and friends. We support one another in our individual endeavors – whether that's working out, going out with friends, visiting people far away or helping to hire a rabbi. 

We're far from perfect. We can both be shortsighted, feel overwhelmed or trapped in role conflict. Answers are not always clear in life, problems are not always easy to identify correctly and solutions can be elusive. We sometimes hurt each other – but at least we both hate when we do. We are people who develop and are always works in progress. We have vulnerabilities and having children makes anyone more vulnerable than ever – whether or not they care to admit it.

But challenges are the only path to real growth and success.

Nine years later – and eight years, ten months and one day since we first set foot on Patmos – I feel we are indeed successful. And I am so happy to be here, today with my beloved.