A Remote Wedding Anniversary - Cartagena

Cartagena de Indias, Colombia

This is post #4 of a series written during a six-week trip to Colombia. You can find #1 here.

Nighttime view of church towers and cupola in the historic center of Cartagena de Indias in Colombia

Today is our first wedding anniversary.

I’m in Colombia while Umberto is leading a normal life at home. In addition to the nine thousand kilometers between us, we have a seven-hour time difference. So, as much as we’d like to, it’s not possible to have a virtual dinner together. But we are celebrating. We may be separated by time zones and geography, but are together in spirit.

Technically speaking, when I was having Saturday dinner in Colombian time, it was already Sunday in Europe. So I started the celebration in the early morning hours of October 4 in Italy.

Before going to bed, I’m listening to the playlist I prepared for the wedding DJ a year ago. I grab my computer and start browsing our wedding albums online. There are hundreds of photos, lovely happy photos of us and our friends and family. I’m feeling nostalgic and happy looking at them, going back and forth, seeing each photo several times. It was such a beautiful wedding weekend, a three-day party, a celebration of love!

Suddenly, I realize something important. While it would be wonderful to be physically together on this anniversary, in a funny, roundabout way, it is quite normal that we are not. Because this is what our love is all about:

We both want the other person to be happy and fulfill their dreams.

I’m happy when he’s happy and vice versa. He knows how much I love learning new things. He knows that when I decide to do something it means I’m all in, there are no watered-down “I-would-like-to” versions. It’s a binary yes or no. And a yes means… YES! I just had to do this Colombia and Spanish school thing, and he’s happy for me. As am I when he’s doing his thing.

Our love is about respect.

In many things, we are aligned and think the same. In others, we’re different. We cherish and respect those differences.

Our love is about liberty.

It’s about giving and receiving freedom. You can be who you are and I can be who I am. You can do the things that really matter to you, and so can I. And that freedom comes with responsibility and trust.

But oh, I do miss him every day, every morning, every lunchtime and every evening, especially today.

I resisted the idea of getting married for a good twelve years. He had his point of view. I had my reasons, and they were equally valid. But in the end, I’m more than happy we did it. It was the right thing at the right time. The best thing. And a legendary party it was, too!