11,096,000,000 Miles
In a single year, the earth makes a 584 million mile journey around the sun. That number staggers the imagination and also provides some perspective. For the person who feels like they never go anywhere, the reality is that they travel over half a billion miles per year. It also let me come up with a fun number to celebrate the incredible woman to whom I have been married for now 19 years.
We have traveled 11 billion 96 million miles around the sun together. You have heard of “I love you to the moon and back”? That’s a 477,800 mile trip, so we are talking about to the moon and back 23,223 times. I’m throwing out these ridiculous numbers because it difficult to convey how much I love and appreciate E. A. Cox.
We have known each other since we were college kids. If you count our time dating, we have been with each other over half of our lives. Surprisingly she is not tired of me (I ask periodically just to make sure) and I have only grown more enamored with her.
She is smart, compassionate, beautiful, funny, quirky, creative, and so many other things that bring light to our family. She knows when to push me and when to encourage me. She cares deeply for our sons, her students, and her loved ones. So many times, I have seen her pull one of our boys into her arms and watched the weight of the world lifted off of them. She has done the same for me and I hope that I have done that for her. Regardless of where we are, being with E. A. feels the most like home.
The two of us have had this ongoing conversation about whether people are made for each other. And E. A. rightfully gets a bit annoyed at me because my position is more practical than romantic. It would be kind of mean if there was just one person for us in a world of eight billion. Yet I cannot imagine a person better suited for me than Elizabeth Anne Cox.
So, Beautiful, thank you for these 19 years. I am really fortunate that I get to share life with you. I love you and I like you. Here is to billions and billions of more miles together.