I’m Feeling Kind Of Woody Today

Five years ago today my wife and I nervously paced around the synagogue waiting for everyone to arrive. We had just finished taking the family pictures on the stairs, signed the ketubah to the right side of the bimah, and we were now anxiously waiting for the time to get started. What seemed forever to wait for, including the two and a half year engagement, was over in what seemed like seconds. While a memory that seems like a blur in time, the moments are as vivid as the world currently surrounding us.  

We frequently look back on that day, flip through the pictures, and find ourselves still amazed that it has now been five years since we became husband and wife (the gift for this year is wood). While there have been a few moments here and there since that day that we would have done differently or wished had gone better, we are here today stronger and closer than we have ever been. With life getting busier and busier by the day, I look forward to heading home for the night to be with my wife.

So today we mark the first five years of our marriage with all the love that we have shared during the past half-decade. Our bond has taken us from Pennsylvania to Brooklyn to New Jersey to Jerusalem and back to Pennsylvania. We have each experienced various levels of employment and kept a wide variety of work hours. We have seen sickness and we have experienced health. We have struggled financially but we live in the wealth of our connection to each other.

We have seen one another at our best and at our worst. We have traveled around the state and around the world. We have lived a life at varying degrees of observance. Throughout those journeys and those different points in our life, we have continued to stand by on another, grow as a couple, and, eventually, find what works best for the two of us.

I am grateful each morning to have you by my side (even when you are trying to shake me awake as you yell at me to turn my alarm off), thankful for you constantly supporting me no matter how insane my schedule gets, I appreciate you keeping me grounded and forcing me to hold back at times when I try to do too much, and I’m amazed that you put us with me day after day after day. Thank you for the first five years of marriage. I will do my best to improve a few things during the next five years. Happy Anniversary! I love you!