A week ago was my wedding anniversary. Usually I don't give specifics, but this is one day that I'm happy to have found someone who was willing to stick with me for twenty-seven years and not wander off for greener pastures… or at least pastures without me.

When I first moved from my mother's home, burned out from too many hours and barely able to hold my life together, I had no intent on ever getting married. In reality, I had no intent on even finding someone and didn't really try. It just wasn't in the cards for me.

Random factors aligned as they did and I stumbled into it (as Partner says, the first time she met me, she thought I was an asshole; I don't remember the first time I met her). Who knew that Torg and ShadowRun would eventually lead to me here? But it did and I never really questioned it. I still remember RPG games on my king-sized bed, that trip to Sears, and Red Lobster. I remember so many little points that are now anchors in my life trailing to those early days.

Me: When do you want to get married?

Partner: I always wanted to get married in the year 2000 and in May.

Me: I'm good as long as it is the thirteenth.

A lot happened in the beginning of 2000. We had just gotten out of the Y2K panic (which was a lot of hours of work on my part), I had eye surgery, got my last name changed, and now I was going to get married. At that point, we had been together four years (give or take, we recently decided just to add four years to however long we've been together.)

A lot has happened in those two decades. We enacted our Salmon Plan (to go back to her birthplace to have children and die… of old age). We had children. I got a lot happier, both in having someone to support me but also because she pulled me out of a toxic environment I could not escape on my own.

There were trials, fears, loss, and pain. There was also joy, dancing in the living room, and the exhausted “I love you” as we went to separate beds because of the kids.

I wouldn't be the person I am today without Partner. I don't want to think about the person I would be in the future without them. They have supported me for so many years, through depression and books and endless projects. I've done the same back and wouldn't trade it for this universe or the next.

Twenty-seven years together and twenty-three married.

Only twenty-seven to go¹.

¹ Running joke after we decided on a “fifty year marriage” before we renew our vows. She's counting on me wanting to stay married, I wanted to give her an out.