They’d stopped doing traditional anniversaries around year three.
Not because they’d stopped caring — but because they’d realized they both quietly hated the pressure. The restaurant reservation, the gift that was supposed to mean something, the expectation of a feeling that was supposed to arrive on cue.
What they did instead was simpler. Every year, on the date, they each brought one memory from the year — just one, something small — and shared it over dinner at home.
It had started as a half-joke and become the thing Elena looked forward to most.
“You go first,” said Dmitri, pouring the wine.
She’d thought about it all week. There were big things she could have said — the trip, the health scare that turned out to be nothing, the decision they’d made together that had changed the shape of their life. But she’d landed on something smaller.
“March,” she said. “You were on that call for three hours and I brought you tea you didn’t ask for and you mouthed *thank you* without stopping talking.”
He looked at her across the table.
“You mouthed it three times,” she said. “Once when I put it down, once when you realized what it was, and once when you looked at me again. Like you were surprised I was still there.”
“I wasn’t surprised,” he said quietly. “I was grateful.”
She nodded. “Your turn.”
He looked at his wine for a moment. “February,” he said. “You laughed at your own joke before you finished telling it and knocked your elbow on the table.” He smiled. “I kept thinking about it all week. Just — how much I love that laugh.”
Love, Elena thought, is a collection of small kept things.
✦ Today’s Reflection
What is your favorite memory from this past year of your relationship — the real one, not the big one?
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Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc 
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