She smiled at me and said with excitement:
“February 14, it’s our half-a-versary.”
We have been celebrating half-a-versaries since our first six months together. We were very much in love. We would seize upon the most insignificant event to celebrate our love. We celebrated our six month anniversary with as much enthusiasm as one would celebrate their 50th golden year together. As half-a-versaries go, it was a fairly grand event. I reserved a hotel room and took her to a special place that had Jacuzzis outdoors with little private cabanas. Her birthday was only two months away, then of course came the holidays.
On our first Valentine’s Day together as a couple, she wrote me a love letter. I gave her flannel pajamas. We were so very in love but our one-year anniversary was just a month away and we didn’t want celebrating to be so over-the-top that it surpassed the celebrating of our one-year anniversary. For our one-year anniversary we went away but it was rushed and crammed and all the things that anniversary celebrations shouldn’t be. We were on the coast during a nor’easter that nearly swept away our hotel. I had a headache the whole weekend and an unexpected call from home pressuring us to leave early turned our celebration sour.
Our second half-a-versary celebrated in a small college town in Massachusetts as part of parent’s weekend at my stepdaughter’s college. While the love was still great, the romance, was replaced with choral performances both nights and the snack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in one of the school cafeterias.
When our third half-a-versary approached I assumed that we would be celebrating. I was wrong. “We can’t celebrate our half-a-versary, we just got married.” said Emily with the certainty that made me afraid to challenge her.
“Oh yeah I forgot” I said as if I understood the rules of this half-a-versary business. “No more half-a-versary” I said, that businesses over.
You can imagine then, my surprise when she announced February 14 is our half-a-versary.
We were now celebrating Valentine’s Day on top of a half-a-versary and it seemed as though we had just finished Christmas.
“I’m cooking a special meal for you on our half-a-versary” she said one night while we were watching TV. “Do you like tempura?” she asked.