Lucky 13

May 29 is our 13th anniversary. Certainly a number to give one pause. How should we handle it? Do we hunker down, hold our breath and hope to not get hit with bad luck this year? Do we look at it as having just completed our 13th year of marriage, thus we should just now be emerging from bad luck? Or do we go by the anniversary of our first date -- June 1, 1985 -- which makes our relationship 21 years old (and, as J says, legal to drink).

Maybe I should just try to be less superstitious. I mean, what is luck anyway? Good or bad, by convention we define luck as an occurrence (or series of occurrences) that is perceived as being highly improbable. Winning the lottery -- a one in several billion chance. Or a lightning strike -- a one in 200 million chance. The perception can be more important than the actual odds (people have written books about this). Everyone knows you're statistically in more danger in your car than on a plane, but it feels different when you're boarding the plane.

The thing is, every moment is unique, and there are an infinite number of moments. If you look at it a certain way, every moment is like winning every lottery there is at once (since the chance of you experiencing that particular moment is one in infinity).

I mean, really, what do you suppose the probability is of, at age 15, finding "The One" on your first try at a relationship?

What are the odds you'd meet him on the last night of the school musical, at a piano --you heading there to play a song by your favorite band, he already there playing a song by the same band?

What's the probability that relationship would last through your college years even though you were separated by anywhere from 60 miles to 350 miles for the better part of four years?

How likely is it that your wedding would feature a spectacularly dropped cake and gale-force winds which knock a pole out of the center of the reception tent to bounce off a table and hit the priest in the nose (followed by an Iwo Jima-like moment when several of the men at the wedding hoist the pole back into place -- led by MM's dad hollering "rally 'round the flag, boys!")

How likely is it that after all this, a video camera would catch you, hanging on to the tableware to keep it from flying into the neighbors' yard, saying "I'm still smiling..."

A lot has happened in the 13 years since that day, and believe it or not, I'm still smiling.

Here's hoping our luck holds...