My 23rd Wedding Anniversary Morning

Schwarzenbach 4th May 2017

As I woke up on the day of my 23rd wedding anniversary, I took a trip down memory lane. These milestone events inspire us to reflect on the meaning of the day, who we were then and how we have evolved. In the case of a marriage, it is marathon, not a sprint, and we have a partner who makes the journey with us. We change and evolve along the way and hope we hold our common ground while weathering storms and the unexpected. Today I am enjoying the love my husband and I have shared together for most of our adult lives, since I was a young woman of only 26 years old.

At 6 AM my eyes open suddenly. Next to me in bed is my husband snoring beside me! Looking at the side of his silver grey hair, his bristled style facial hair that also has changed from a soft off blond with ginger highlight from the beard of his youth. The fact that he is still asleep; however, that’s nothing new as I have always been the one in the family that wakes up first, quite early in fact. I am a bit late up today, 6:15AM rather than my usual 5am. After all these years I have a natural alarm clock that wakes me up every day and seems set in stone, even on Sundays, which are the worst when I just want a lie in and can’t. The body alarm clock doesn’t know when to stop, until you are dead I suppose!

Today is Thursday and I am late up I admit: however, a lovely evening is to blame so I can live with that! We had guests visiting the Schloss so we enjoyed a little late night cap with cold meats, cheese board and foisgras accompanied by the best red wine money can buy shared with old friends. Definitely worth a late wake up! Back to the snoring and watching the man I have spent 8395 nights in bed with…The snoring must probably woke me up given all those nights you would have thought I gotten used to it!

As I lie in bed I am also gazing out of the window, hoping to see the same day I saw on my wedding day morning, which was a blue sky scattered with white fluffy clouds and the sun shining through. it’s my wedding day!! Yuppie! I remembered being excited, full of electricity. Nothing beats the feeling of getting married and the extraordinary heartbeat of love two people share on wedding day. Nothing beats being in love and my thought as I got up 23 years ago, happy and in love nothing convinced could go wrong on this day. I jumped out of bed and looked out of my third floor apartment window in Milner square, a beautiful Edwardian British style conversion flat in the heart of Islington. This was my home, my first purchase before I met the man of my life. We were living there in a two bedroom with my beautiful idyllic Zara, my first born, and a little cute one-year old Eloise and my mother. All I could think was I am getting married!

Today in Schwarzenbach, the weather looks brisk with blue trace of skies hiding under a white blanket of rain clouds hovering above. I hope it doesn’t rain as today we plan a day of fun in Zurich but regardless of the weather we will celebrate moments of the life we built together. Suddenly the snoring stops we are on our iPhones, scrolling the news of the world and each other’s lives. How things have changed in two plus decades, we don’t only go to bed with our partners but we sleep with our technical devices between the covers or on the side under the pillow. We are also married to them as well as our partners!

While writing this blog I checked Instagram and Snapchat too as my better half, balancing his glasses on the edge of his nose, fingers tapping and scrolling on his second love of his life (iPhone) shouts out Arsenal lost it!!  damn it !! in his somewhat husky morning groggy voice. So much to celebrate! Our anniversary symbolizes the day we married 23 years ago as well as our success, hard work, and dedication to each other and our five daughters. Therefore, this is not only a reminder of our wedding day, it is also opens up a new part of our fabulous amazing life together. This is a day to recite the vows we took and affirm their meaning moving forward to the future. “I take you to be my wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part”.