Marriage By the Numbers: Celebrating Our First Fifteen Years

I recently wrote an article for a new Matador Life  series, Love In the Time of Matador. There, I talk about how to manage a long term relationship, a subject that is impossible to quantify. Other parts of a relationship can be laid out in numbers.

So here on this 15th anniversary of our wedding, I give you the following.

 

Hours together: 128,976

Number of days we've spent away from each other: 101 

Number of Children: One

Fights over the years: 10 main themes with variations on each repeating.

Places Lived Together: Six. Brooklyn, Buffalo, Bocas del Toro, Buenos Aires, Salta and Atlanta.

Pets we've had: Eight. Not including various fish, that's two iguanas, two snakes, two cats and two dogs.

Countries we've traveled together: 18.

Discussions about Israeli politics: Too many to count.

Yoga classes we've attended: Two. (I say one. Noah thinks three. I took the average.)

Cost of our first international flight: $350.00 We found a cheap ticket on Pakistan International Air that allowed us to fly into any one of ten European cities and leave from any other. We flew into Paris then took the train to Amsterdam. This was our honeymoon.

Jobs we've had including website designer for MTV News, data analyst for Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, researching mating habits of naked mole rats and teaching poetry to NYC public school 8th graders: 10

Couches we've owned: 2

DVD's in media storage folders sitting in my parents house: 800 (If you want some, let me know. Just don't tell Noah.)

Boxes of photos in storage: One. We didn't take many photos until Noah's sister gave us a digital camera when Lila was born. Thus, not much photographic evidence prior to that. Even with the digital camera, we rarely take photos of the two of us, because it's usually one of us behind the camera. This one, I think taken by Lila, may well one day make her cringe. For now, she thinks it's sweet.

Times we could have used a reset button: 3

Years to go? Only time will tell.

Happy Anniversary, Noah! Now I'm logging off for the rest of the weekend so we can celebrate!