Wendy Rank – February 2025

Here’s the thing about Valentine’s Day.

It’s kind of my anniversary.

Not Valentine’s Day itself. This anniversary is a few days before. And it’s not our wedding anniversary I’m talking about, which is in November and completely unacknowledged by us. February is the anniversary of our first date. Yeah. Can you imagine the awkward- ness of having a first date just before Valentine’s Day? What were we thinking?

Anyway, this February anniversary arrives during a gap in our schedule. It’s not summer, when my husband’s work schedule goes crazy. Or autumn, when he’s away hunting. Or the holidays. It’s just…February. That February day is sacrosanct. We celebrate in little ways. Sometimes in big, bombastic ways. But always together.

Then the outdoor show happened. It’s a whole thing. My husband volunteers with an outdoors organization. They have a booth at this outdoor show in Harrisburg. My husband volunteers in the booth. On our anniversary.

Listen. I don’t care. Really, I don’t. I join him in Harrisburg and hang out with the outdoorsmen. Who do not talk about TV as much as you’d think.

I mean, Gilligan’s Island? Dallas? Yellowstone? The characters on those shows are outside, like, all the time.

This year, the outdoor show fell on the week before our anniversary. Maybe we could do something on our anniversary? Together? Not at an outdoors show with zero booths dedicated to Yellowstone?

So we’re headed out of town. The Gulf of Mexico. Oh, not for our anniversary. It’s Family Weekend at our daughter’s college. We leave the day after our anniversary. And the main events of Family Weekend are on Valentine’s Day. Yeah.

I feel this anniversary slipping through our fingers. For good reasons. All good reasons. But still going, nonetheless.

So this is where I talk about what happened to our real anniversary, the November one. We never celebrated it because, well, we always forgot about it.

There was our first anniversary, when we were moving into our new house. We only realized it was our anniversary when the cards came in. There was the anniversary we had a colicky baby whose screams pretty much made us regret our union. There was the anniversary my husband collapsed a lung. And that anniversary my appendix almost ruptured. Then there was the anniversary my mom went into the hospital. And the other anniversary she went into the hospital. And the other other anniversary she went into the hospital. Oh, she’s fine. Her hospitalizations are like timeshares – certain times of the year under specific circumstances.

So by the time my husband took up hunting – which, if you don’t know, is at its peak in November – the idea of celebrating our anniversary was laughable. New house, new babies, misbehaving internal organs – who had the time? Heck, who had the inclination? But February…it was always quiet. No oozing innards. No stubborn babies. No hospitals.

So now we’re celebrating that February anniversary while we pack for warmer temperatures – to see that colicky baby, all grown up. Four years of anniversaries in sunny Florida, where we’ll take a swim test to participate in the college’s water activities.

Hey – do you guys think an alligator will eat me? No, right? Probably not. That kind of thing only happens on the November anniversary. Hopefully.

Contact Wendi Rank on Instagram @wendirank