I do...

13 years ago today, Cyndi and I were married. We were two young kids, in love (she was 22 and I was 26), and we had, as they say, the world at our fingertips. Cyndi was working as a dietitian at ManorCare in Libertyville, where we met, and I was the admission director at the ManorCare in Arlington Heights. We were dirt poor, saddled down with student loans and credit card debt I brought into the relationship, and we were so stressed out about money. We never argued about it; Cyndi never once complained about what I brought to the table. But we were concerned that we were overdoing our celebration. In fact, when we sent out our rehearsal dinner invitations, we put a stipulation in it that it that the invite did not include a "plus one." As we understood it, the rehearsal dinner was our tab. And we didn't really have any money to fund it. So we had to limit the number of people in attendance. It was embarrassing; it was our reality. At the end of the night, my dad flipped the bill. Thankfully.

Even with all of that kind of stress, we were fortunate. Fortunate that we had our families behind us. Fortunate that we had our friends. Fortunate that we were gainfully employed. Fortunate that we had each other.

Today, our lives are so much better, but not that different. We have two wonderful children, I have a job I enjoy and appreciate, Cyndi is totally dedicated to the education of our children, and the thing we stressed out about the most, is a distant memory.

But our love, our appreciation, our commitment to one another continues. We remain fortunate, and I remain a happy man.