270

For my wife, a happy monthly anniversary as we sit on the cusp of the shortest day of the year, when the darkness is at its greatest. But it’s the depth of the winter abyss. Everything after is more light and eventually more warmth. It’s another winter we are spending away from loved ones, away from America. It’s our third in Europe, our second in Scandinavia, and our first with just one cat.  I hope you are happy. I hope the darkness and the renewed COVID restrictions doesn’t make you feel boxed in. I hope another Christmas away from your family don’t make you alone and unloved. No one should feel that, especially this time of year, and especially you. I love you.

 269

Happy monthly anniversary, my love.

It’s that time again when the darkness takes over for days and months and we all start to retreat into sweaters, long coats, hygge lights, and the appeal to sleep long hours. We will rest here for the holidays and see in another year in Denmark. We will have lived abroad for another year, making a new life in a foreign country. I hope you are enjoying this. I hope you feel loved and safe here. 

I love you.

 268

To my wife, another monthly anniversary for us. 

There and back again regarding Chicago, regarding the marathon, regarding seeing my family for the first time in the two years of plague. At least the flights were near empty. Our own flying couches where we could sleep in peace. 

Away from home for a week. I forgot what it was like to vacate. But then I never vacated well. 

Thank you for watching me run, and trying to find me at different spots along the course. I promise next marathon will be local. No need to fly thousands of miles to see me sweat. 

 267

To my wife, on our monthly anniversary. I love you, and I hope you are always happy. 

 266

To my wife, a happy monthly anniversary. This time around we are joined by your parents, who managed to get their vaccinations and be well enough and COVID free enough to travel through Europe and work their way to see us after stopping in our old city of Amsterdam. Being home, you'll spend more time with them, which is fair. Perhaps needed. You haven't seen them for a couple years, part of the wide gulf enforced on millions around the world where we couldn't travel in 2020...and even if we did, we wouldn't want to. We were isolating to save each other...hiding out of love, giving each other signs of life via livestreaming from tablets on birthdays, holidays, when the distance got too much to bear. 

I hope their visit nourishes you and sustains you. It's a needed gift. 

 265

To my wife, another monthly anniversary. Now in the summer of Copenhagen we swelter, remembering the long, cruel darkness of winter. Now we yearn for breezes and strategically block the sun with blackout drapes. 

But we rest in the summer together, me now on summer break. Your parents will visit in a few weeks and I have time to get my thoughts together or to calm my brain after weeks of running to keep up game development. 

It is a better time. I love you. 

 264

For my love on our 22-year anniversary.

Summer is here and today we celebrate our years together. Something low-key given the heat. Exploring a castle. Dinner by the water. Our time out together as part of a city and a country waking up after COVID kept us inside and anxious for more than a year. Each of us is half-vaccinated. The masks are now just used for the Metro. We can be city dwellers again. We can be in the full colors of the sun, alive and grateful for the world. And I hope each other.

 263

Happy monthly anniversary, my love. We are one month shy of 22 years, and what a year we had. Readjustments and relocations, a new country and a new language...the latter of which you are mastering in your introduction class. The time between last year and now feels stretched and distorted, as if it was bent around corners and pushed through deep water to get to now. Soon, we will be vaccinated, soon life will be back to what normal was. Soon, we can together breathe some relief. Hopefully that soon will land before our 22-year anniversary, when we can finally travel, making Europe seem more than a digital stretch of Google Maps and something more like a shared memory.

 262

Happy monthly anniversary. A quick marker for another month. I'm racing to update design documents, taking on the role of a director and a writer for the upcoming game story arc. Everything is an anxious blur, but I cannot forget this day, this part of the month with meaning. The weather has turned into spring, mild and warm at long last. I hope the light makes you happy. I hope the sight of the sea, blue and infinite, out the east window, gives you a sense of solace. I hope you know you are loved. 

In two months, it will be 22 years. By then, maybe we will have our vaccines. Maybe the world will be more open to us. Maybe life will be less dormant. A true spring for us and our lives. 

 261

To my love. Spring is finally here. The lockdown is getting closer to ending, although we don't have a firm date or even a clue when we will get vaccines. We keep moving forward. We keep trying. The increasing sun helps. The sense that the darkness and cold helps. There is something else coming, something better. I hope, no matter what, that you know you are loved. I hope you will be happy in the coming months. I hope I have been kind and loving to you. 

 260

It's late winter in Denmark. The snow is melted, leaving behind little lakes and ponds everywhere. Today, our monthly anniversary, the sun is out and we are slowly coming out of the dark of the season. It helps us endure another month of lockdown. I know this is not the vision of living in Europe that you had. I hope soon it will be better. I hope for better months to come. I hope you are happy, and that you know that I love you.

 259

To my love. We remain in lockdown again. One day we will be allowed outside again and have some freedom. We will endure and we will do our best to be humane and grateful. I hope you are happy now and I hope you will be happy when this current time of plague is over. And as usual, I hope I am kind to you. Always. It is what you deserve.