I married my high school sweetheart after 15 years together — on our first anniversary, I heard him say, “She still has no idea what I’ve been planning.”

Not watching my friends get married one after another.

Not attending my younger cousin’s wedding when she was only twenty-four.

Not even my stepmother, Deirdre, making a joke at Thanksgiving that I had become “the permanent girlfriend.”

Everyone laughed.

I laughed too.