#Microblog Mondays 91: Anniversary

by Mel

29 comments

1 Beth { 05.23.16 at 6:42 am }

I celebrate birthdays and our wedding anniversary but also very low key. We celebrate D’s embryo transfer day and A’s adoption day (the day we finally got to go to court and she was ours). They’re kind of like half birthdays for each of them, but we just make a big deal about how special the day is and let them choose a special dinner.

It’s funny, I know my “loss” dates because they fell on other memorable dates. I would like to forget that I found out something was wrong after transfer #1 the day before Mothers Day 6 years ago. I would like to forget the day I found out for certain that pregnancy wasn’t viable and was ectopic but it happened on my birthday – lucky me. And the final nail in the coffin, the miscarriage, happened on one of my closest friends’ birthdays so each year when I call him, for a brief moment I remember the time I called him from my car, in between huge bouts of crying, trying to keep it together enough to leave a message.

But I push those away and truly celebrate the good stuff because that’s my life now, the other stuff is passed. Or so I am insisting.

2 Cristy { 05.23.16 at 8:14 am }

Birthdays and wedding anniversaries for sure (though also quietly). I recognize my loss dates, though October 15th is a day Grey and I mark together. The Beat’s FET is marked too.

It’s weird how certain dates begin to fade. It’s not that they are any less important, but with healing they become less sharp emotionally. Even though some of these dates mark beginnings of chapters and transition, remembering to take a moment to celebrate can get lost in the hussel of life (birthdays and wedding anniversary included).

3 Mali { 05.23.16 at 8:20 am }

My husband and I celebrate birthdays and our anniversary. We make a point of going out to dinner together, at the least. I’m not really a party person, but in recent years, as major anniversaries and birthdays have coincided, we’ve taken weekends away or gone on some big trips.

I remember loss anniversaries and would-have-been due dates, and the day I learned I’d never have children was my birthday. As Beth said, lucky me. The dates are acknowledged, simply because I remember them. The pain has largely gone.

4 a { 05.23.16 at 8:42 am }

We celebrate my daughter’s Birthday and my husband’s Birthday and that’s about it. Both of us have a hard time remembering the actual date of our wedding anniversary – we used to rely of his mom’s friend who would send us a card! I note other anniversaries in my head though.

5 Persnickety { 05.23.16 at 8:44 am }

I have forgotten the date of our first date, but we still celebrate the wedding anniversary. I am mostly not very good at remembering specific days before the date, but the memory comes back. And sometimes I round the date to. The month- I might not remember the day, but I can remember the month- it’s been two years, or five or ten.

6 Karen { 05.23.16 at 8:50 am }

For happy occasions: we used to celebrate our dating anniversary as well as our wedding anniversary, but we’ve let the dating anniversary go.

I’m similar to you in marking dates of loss as well. I used to keep track of my cousin, aunt, and grandfather’s death dates, as well as the dates I lost my pregnancies, but the more time that goes on, the less I actually pay attention to the date itself. Usually, though,it comes up in my thoughts and feelings around the time of the loss. I’ve been trying to honor it as it comes up and releasing it so that I don’t have to keep track of the actual dates.

7 loribeth { 05.23.16 at 9:54 am }

I have tons of significant birthdays & anniversaries written down on my calendar, including for relatives who have passed on, like my grandparents. I don’t generally “celebrate” or mark most of them in any concrete way, but I do pause as I look at the calendar inscription & think about that person(s) & my memories of them. At one point, I had the 7th & 14th circled on every month on my calendar (Aug. 7th = date of Katie’s stillbirth; Nov. 14th = her original due date), but I did eventually stop doing that. It just seemed a bit excessive after several years had gone by, and to be honest, I wasn’t even taking note of the circled dates anymore. (But Aug. 7th & Nov. 14th are still on there!)

Dh & I generally don’t make much of a fuss over birthdays & anniversaries, but we do exchange cards and go out for dinner. And for significant anniversaries, especially those divisible by 5 or 10, we’ll sometimes take a little trip somewhere or do something a little more special. 🙂 I have the dates of our first date & engagement date, etc., written on the calendar, and will sometimes comment on it to him, but we generally don’t do anything to mark it, unless maybe it’s a really significant number of years that have gone by.

8 Lori Shandle-Fox { 05.23.16 at 10:24 am }

If you recall, I wrote a whole post about that last month because it was my 12 1/2 year wedding anniversary. But it doesn’t stop there. Every month I say: “Today’s our 12 year and 1 month anniversary etc on the 26th” Those are sort of a joke now. They would be more romantic if my husband ever responded with: “Oh, that’s so sweet. Let’s celebrate” instead of: “You’re not still doing that are you?” Both of our birthdays are in February but in April he always remembers his bar-mitzvah and I remember my Sweet 16 because none of our parents wanted to have a big event in New York in the winter so they both waited until Spring.

9 Working mom of 2 { 05.23.16 at 10:31 am }

We celebrate birthdays and our wedding anniversary. We’ve never done halfs, and I never heard of this until we were invited to a young child’s half bday party’s few years ago. Our engagement is the same date as our wedding.

I note our children’s transfer days (same date 1 month apart). Unfortunately 1 date is 1 day after the date my dad died, and one of our cats died 1 year after my 1st child was transferred…so lots of good and bad dates mixed in.

I remember dates my cats died (4 cats I had for around 20 years each) and my 2 miscarriages (or when I was at the dr and learned the pgs were over, which is what i use, bc they were both missed). but mostly that’s in my head–no formal commemorations.

10 Isabelle { 05.23.16 at 10:35 am }

We celebrate our first date anniversary. We used to celebrate our DTR anniversary (Define the Relationship), but since our wedding anniversary comes one day before that DTR day, we acknowledge it but don’t explicitly celebrate it. We do birthdays, but never half birthdays. Many people like to celebrate with friends and families, but we usually just go out to dinner and sometimes we add a movie or massage. Our Maui trip was for our 5th anniversary, so that was a little bit more special than our usual wedding anniversaries.

11 Lovey { 05.23.16 at 11:03 am }

I know someone at work, who loves celebrating her birthday every month, though she is 30+ now. It’s good to celebrate some days and they remind us of happy times.

12 Cyn K { 05.23.16 at 11:12 am }

I try to ignore my birthday. I stopped showing it on Facebook so I wouldn’t get all of those birthday messages. I don’t know why I became so crabby about it.

13 Ana { 05.23.16 at 11:17 am }

I honestly can’t even remember the exact date of our engagement or first date anymore, though we did celebrate those dates for a few years. We do pretty low key wedding anniversary celebrations, and we celebrate birthdays. That is all.

14 Parul { 05.23.16 at 11:55 am }

Thre is something weird that I deal with and that’s remember many dates. Birthdays, marriage and date anniversaries, death anniversaries – yes. Work anniversaries, not just mine but some peers, birthdays of all family members however, distant they may be, birthdays of chidren of many peers – the list is long. I think maybe with time, I will forget things 🙂

15 katherinea12 { 05.23.16 at 12:15 pm }

Interesting that you should mention this…I’m marking 1 year since my daughter came home from the NICU permanently in the next couple of days and it’s definitely a thing for me right now.

I mark my loss dates, but the one that gets me is the due date with my first pregnancy – which happens to coincide very closely with my husband’s birthday and I thought it would have been fun/wonderful. That one has a special sort of ouch factor.

I think about other significant dates like the day husband and I got engaged or started dating, etc, but I don’t necessarily do anything for them other than note them in my head.

16 Symanntha Renn { 05.23.16 at 1:00 pm }

I still mark several loss dates and comment on them. We still celebrate the day we started dating and try to make a big deal out of our Wedding Anniversary.

17 Lavonne @ the OCD infertile { 05.23.16 at 2:32 pm }

I still keep a lot of dates in my brain but I have let them hold less weight in my life I guess. I usually remember m/c dates, dating anniversaries, the date DH proposed but I just don’t “celebrate” them much anymore. Thanks to FB and Timehop though it’s almost impossible to forget anything anymore, even if I tried. LOL!

18 Sharon { 05.23.16 at 3:33 pm }

For some reason, the date of my first kiss (June 7) has stuck in my mind for the past 30+ years. I think of it every year on that date, though I don’t do anything to commemorate the date.

The only dates I actually celebrate are birthdays and anniversaries.

19 Dubliner in Deutschland { 05.23.16 at 4:16 pm }

Since getting married we don’t celebrate the anniversary of when we got together anymore but our wedding date, I think most people do that. And Valentine’s day we don’t make as much a big deal about since being married. Birthdays are still fun though.

20 JustHeather { 05.23.16 at 4:35 pm }

Birthdays and our wedding anniversary get celebrated to some extent, depending on the event and mood of the celebrant (I’ll be 40 this year and ready to celebrate). I remember when I rolled my car, moved to Finland (17 years this summer), when my mom and grandma died…IVFs and FETs I don’t remember so much. Some things don’t need to be remembered, especially when they are written down somewhere.

21 torthuil { 05.23.16 at 6:44 pm }

Anniversary, and birthdays. Not many other dates, though I’ll probably always remember February 17 (the positive pregnancy test) and March 6 (the ultrasound showing a heartbeat: since in the meantime bleeding pretty much ruined any celebration we might have had since the test). But my way of “celebrating” might be to read an old blog entry. I have an important 10 year anniversary coming up: my trip to Scotland in 2006. I consider it life changing but it’s something really only I recognize, so I’ll have to think about how to mark it. I’d love to go back to Scotland but that won’t happen this year haha.

22 Jess { 05.23.16 at 7:38 pm }

I still celebrate our first date anniversary, which is June 6th and ten years this year. Also, I don’t know the exact date, but I proposed to Bryce on Martin Luther King Day in 2009, so I always mention that. We don’t do anything crazy on either day, sometimes a nice dinner at home (that we were probably planning on anyway), but this year I want to take a picture on the bench where we first kissed. When we walk in that area of the city, we always mention “our bench.” Other dates have slipped me by. I know months of losses but not dates, and I am only reminded of days I should be celebrating someone’s birthday because of children born around that same time that I see either online or across the street. I’ve let those slip, and I think it’s okay. I know where the dates live if I choose to find them again.

23 Traci York { 05.23.16 at 7:40 pm }

We’ve also let many of anniversaries slide over the years. In the beginning (a thousand years ago in the 80s), I made a point to commemorate our first date, our engagement, our birthdays (and hubby kindly went along with it) and such, but now all we typically do is a special dinner at home.

24 IF Pom { 05.23.16 at 9:31 pm }

I am the exact opposite. I can hardly remember important dates let alone to celebrate them. I tease DH that he is more like the girl in the relationship in that respect. He will remember all important dates, while I rely on the calendar reminders on my phone to remember everything from taking vitamins to anniversaries.

25 Stephanie (Travelcraft Journal) { 05.23.16 at 9:48 pm }

Birthdays and our wedding anniversary for sure. Sometimes we celebrate our first date anniversary because it’s a good excuse to dress up and go out to dinner. There’s a loss we recognize as a couple every year. We usually plant something or scatter wildflower seeds. And then there are lots of dates (happy and sad) that stick with me, but I don’t really do much to recognize.

Happy bat mitzvanniversary!

26 Mary Francis { 05.23.16 at 10:03 pm }

My family is growing – baby Frank arrived in January, and my youngest daughter ‘s first baby is due in September. With these new special dates to remember, I find some of the old favourites slipping out of my mind!

My husband has a trick to remembering our wedding anniversary …It’s the password to one of his most frequented accounts!

27 Lori Lavender Luz { 05.24.16 at 5:49 pm }

My college graduation anniversary was the other day (I’m not unique in that). My high school one is coming up too. I realized then what grade I’d be in if we kept having grades. It’s really high.

28 chandni { 05.25.16 at 4:16 am }

Hi Mel, Missed adding this post , this week as well .. here’s the post that went up on my blog .. its about Feminism – do share your views..
https://theaddress.wordpress.com/2016/05/22/feminism-is-not-wanting-to-be-a-man-microblogmondays/

29 Battynurse { 05.28.16 at 6:28 am }

Birthday. I tend to remember although not “commemorate” the day my dad died and my parents anniversary as it was considered family day. I’m guessing since we didn’t celebrate any holidays.