A year ago today I married the most wonderful woman I have ever met. The following were my vows to her.
I can tell you the exact moment that I realized I wanted to marry you.
It was December 31st, 2010, about a year and a half ago, and we were riding up a chairlift in Colorado. It was, without exception, the single coldest day of skiing I have ever experienced, with a temperature of negative 8 degrees and at least 30 mile per hour winds. You are always, always colder than I am, so if my fingers and toes were freezing together then you must have been close to turning into a popsicle. This was only your second time skiing. But you knew I loved skiing, and you wanted to go out and share that with me.
When I put my arm around you and asked if you were up for another run, you replied with as much gusto as you could, “Yes.”
And in an instant it clicked. I saw a vision of us, of our lives together, and I realized that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.
Because you say Yes to things.
You say Yes to adventures, to dinner parties, weekend trips, house guests, staying in, going out. You say yes to hitting every restaurant in old town, to learning my favorite board game, to going out of our way to visit Andorra even though it’s kind of a dump, to simply taking a walk because I need to clear my head.
And it’s not just the easy things. You said yes to dating a compulsive traveler, someone who left for two months after a single date. You said yes to dating someone who could have moved away to law school, to the idea of long distance if we had to. When I did stay, you said yes to moving in with me the same month I started school, something widely considered to be a crazy idea.
But then you said yes to coming to live with me in Germany last summer, to going on an impromptu road trip to Venice, to taking a walk to Piazza San Marco, to turning a corner to find an empty bridge, and … to me when I got down on one knee and asked you to marry me.
So my vow to you is that I will say Yes to things too.
I will say yes to adventures, to dinner parties, to staying in, to going out. I will say yes to doing the dishes, to the ups and the downs, the twists and the turns, the joys and the sorrows of life.
Because life is about saying yes to things, and I want to spend the rest of my life saying yes to things with you.
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