Anniversary letters

A year of your story, written down.

An anniversary is the one day a year you're allowed to be sentimental out loud. Most of it gets spent on a table booking.

An anniversary letter is the part that survives the dinner — a record of what this particular year of the two of you was actually like.

Write the year, not the vows

What happened this year that you got through together.
A moment you keep coming back to, described exactly.
Something they did for you that they probably don't remember.
What's changed about them that you like even more.
What you want next year to look like.

Year seven. Here's what I'd keep.

Letters to a husband or wife

After enough years, the compliments get generic. The fix is detail: the way they handle bad news, how they are at 6 a.m., what they say to your kids when they think nobody's listening.

Write it the way you'd describe them to someone who'd never met them.

Write one for a future anniversary

Write a letter now for your tenth, your twenty-fifth, your fiftieth — and schedule it to arrive on the morning of the day.

Couples sometimes write one each, sealed, to be opened together years later. Neither of you gets to edit it in the meantime.

Keep reading

Put this year into words they can keep.

Begin a SENTiment