2001

It was the end of a “long and winding road.” It was the beginning of a “long and winding road.”

That year, now twenty-five years ago, began with a New Year’s celebration, some champagne. Billie, my friend, my rock, my girlfriend of fourteen years and I had toasted to the coming year. We settled back to our routine and I proposed.

“Really? I had totally given up on you.”

She said yes, and then ten minutes later clarified that her yes was conditional. “Oh, but I can’t leave Bailey.” Her then four year old black lab was, of course part of the bargain and a part of our family for another ten years.

This was more than a “will you marry me?” It was a “will you consolidate our two townhouses in Pittsburgh, move to New York City, and marry me?”

A consultant at the time, I pulled out Microsoft project. The resulting plan stretched around her kitchen.

We planned house sale, car sale, the apartment search, the move, and set the wedding date for September 23^rd. We followed the plan religiously.

Even “the best laid schemes,” as Robbie Burns said, “Gang aft agley.” In the days following September 11, 2001, New York was a city in mourning. We moved a one hundred plus guest Central Park Boathouse wedding, live music, flowers, etc. forward a month to a beautiful October day in this week of that year.

Acknowledging the pain still felt in our adopted city, we celebrated love.

The Intervening Years

This was a second marriage for each of us. Our exes were at the wedding. Our children were the wedding party.

Samuel Johnson, the eighteenth century English essayist, called second marriages, “the triumph of hope over experience.”  That’s probably true. It doesn’t mean second marriages are any less work than first marriages.

Thankfully, Billie and I have figured out that, however long it might take, we can make decisions together, buying and selling houses, redecorating kitchens and bathrooms, traveling, changing jobs and locations, the big stuff. We have also learned (mostly) to not sweat the small stuff.

We also learned that we shouldn’t work together.

Oh, we can divide up a task, and she’ll do her part and I’ll do mine. But, doing the same task, say painting a room together, is not a good idea. She spends hours taping and masking, and then paints; I paint and then spend hours cleaning up. We have different styles, which are fine if we are in different rooms, because the time use and end product is about the same, but side-by-side tends to produce conflict.

Once a year, we take time to celebrate. We look back at the year. We relive the major events, feel sad about some, laugh about others. These days we laugh that we can’t remember everything. “Wait, where did we have Thanksgiving?” And we drink champagne. I committed long ago that I would not repeat British economist John Maynard Keynes dying words, “I wish I had drunk more champagne.”

2026

This is a big year for us, our silver anniversary. We will drink champagne, but probably a glass and not a bottle. We will celebrate love once again.

It’s not just a big year for us.

The attacks on the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and Flight 93 were twenty-five years ago. We will remember.

Our nation, the United States of America, had our 250^th birthday. We were less than united about how we celebrated that event this summer. We have another opportunity in a few weeks. We can VOTE for local leaders, state leaders and members of Congress that represent the ideas and policies we believe in.

Elections are to be celebrated. Yes, they are competitive. But we have the choice to see them as not a confrontation, but as a conversation. What kind of government do we want?  It’s kind of like a marriage, an agreement between interested parties.

“You paint your way; I’ll paint mine. Let’s agree on the color first.”

Let’s celebrate Love. Let’s celebrate our government, a representative democratic republic.

I read something recently by my friend and patron Dennis Pitocco, the Founder and CEO of publisher BIZCATALYST 360°

“The world doesn’t need more grinding, more striving, more relentless forward motion. It needs more moments of genuine joy impressed upon it. It needs people who know how to pause, acknowledge, and celebrate—not because everything is perfect, but because some things are worth honoring. That’s not frivolous. That’s how we stay human.”

So please join Billie and me in celebrating Love, celebrating Joy, celebrating conversation towards a better tomorrow.

And Billie, I love you. Here’s to another twenty-five, or to another next year.

Now everybody watch Kool and the Gang, dance, and sing along.

Photos by Ira Fox