Today is very special. In fact, it is momentous, for us at least. Ten years ago, we professed our love and commitment to each other and got married. As many couples will agree, reaching the ten year anniversary is a real milestone worth celebrating. Looking back through the years, it’s hard to believe how far we’ve come and what we’ve experienced together. 

A roller coaster in every sense of the term, our journey has had breathtaking thrills and victories, spirit shattering losses, seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and what often feels like every twist, turn, up, down, bump and detour one could imagine. 

Despite all of the challenges throughout our time together (and sometimes because of them!), an overwhelming sense of gratitude fills my heart, mind, and soul. 

Though every love story is unique, ours has elements that are rather uncommon. I invite you to get comfortable, relax, and enjoy the ride! 

In early February 2012, after nearly 12 years of marriage and over 15 years together, I found myself newly divorced from an otherwise lovely man who unfortunately, was unable to overcome a decades long struggle with severe alcoholism. After exhausting literally every avenue for recovery over the length of our marriage, and realising that things would never change, I made the painful decision to prioritise my own health and happiness, gave up on that marriage and filed for divorce. 

Having felt the sting of relationship loneliness for so long and now beginning a new life as a single person, there was a deep longing for companionship, to feel joy and spark again. I wasn’t looking for anything serious mind you, and certainly not another marriage!  Since I was planning to relocate to Venice, Italy after my house (see divorce!) sold, my sights were set on casual. 

My initial hopes were simply to find someone fun to hang out with a few times a week. You know, dinners, date nights, the usual drill. Having no interest in random hook ups, the bar scene, or God forbid blind dates(!), I had long since forgotten how to begin. 

A dear friend recommended an online dating site called OK Cupid. Within minutes on the site, I found myself excited, hopeful and smiling. Here, there was no random! Online dating felt like ordering off of a menu. 

Shallow as that may sound, it also offered empowerment, a chance to filter out so many potentially bad dates and incompatible people, an express lane to those with matching ideals, likes, dislikes and of course, chemistry! 

For starters, I knew I wanted a big guy, the whole tall and broad thing. Tiny is not a term I would use to describe myself, so I began by a height requirement- 6’1″ and up. The reason being is that many men who claim to be 6′ are in fact 5’11” or shorter.  It was also important that he had no kids or was still raising kids at home.

My profile complete, ‘filters’ in place, off I went into the wild unknown. Happily, it didn’t take long before I had my first date, then another, and another. What an ego boost! There were some hits and some misses. All in all, I had 9 first dates, a couple of which that turned into short term relationships lasting a few weeks or months. Nothing was a bullseye, but for the first time in years, I was really enjoying myself (and them)!

There was one profile I really liked. Articulate, witty, genuine, all big pluses. However, his profile picture was so far off center that his face wasn’t even visible! That irked me. Anyone who couldn’t even center their profile picture was either as dumb as a bag of hammers or he had an ‘I don’t care’ attitude. Both possibilities were turn offs, so I kept skipping over him. 

Nine first dates later, the mystery man was the only one left that my filtering deemed compatible. So one day, while solo vacationing in Italy and feeling extra lonely, I reached out. 

His response confirmed that, profile picture aside, he was indeed intelligent and charming. After writing back and forth over several days and agreeing to meet, I got so excited that I cut my trip short just to meet a week sooner! 

He was my tenth first date, but by the end of the first hour, it was clear that He. Was. Different. As though I’d known him all of my life. He felt like home.

Halfway through our date, he matter-of-factly said, “I’m just letting you know that you and I are going out on another date.” That made my heart twitterpate. It was June 2nd, 2012. The day I met Adam. 

He told me that he had been divorced twice and that he never planned to marry again, like ever. However, years later he confessed to me that while he was driving home after our first date, he looked at himself in the rear view mirror of his truck and said, “You’re going to marry that woman.” 

Even though we were both about to turn 42 and 44 respectively, our parents and closest friends thought we were crazy and were very concerned. We are both Geminis after all, and tend to be quite impulsive. 

We usually stayed at his house and in July, he gave me a ‘drawer.’ Two weeks later, he gave me a key. In August I moved in. He proposed in September.

Everyone close to  us could see what was happening, but still, no one thought it would last. In February 2013, I took him to my favorite place in the world, Venice. By reading my dating profile, he knew that I planned on moving there before we ever met. However in all fairness, I knew from his profile that he wanted to someday live in Europe, though he’d never been to Venice, or Italy for that matter. To my happy surprise, he fell in love with Venice almost immediately! At this stage however, relocating to Europe, as exciting as it was to talk about, seemed like just that… talk. 

We set our wedding date for 2 June, 2013, exactly one year after our first date. We decided to elope, and drove to a spectacular area of Northern California called Half Moon Bay to tie the knot. 

After returning home, our lives returned to normal. Adam worked in construction and though he enjoyed his craft, he hated his job. My job (HR) was soul crushing and I didn’t want to do it for even one more day. 

More serious conversations about relocating to Venice together became a daily ritual; logistics, income source, countless ‘what ifs,’ etc. At some point, the idea of food tasting tours seemed promising, and after attending an intensive 3 day course, we knew that it was the direction to take. 

In February 2014, another Venice trip was planned to really get a sense of whether or not we could make this happen. At first, it was just another two weeks, but after an exceptionally stressful day, I told Adam that if we were going to take this far out idea seriously, that staying for a month was needed, so that he could get a real sense of what it would be like to actually live there. I’d been going to Venice for over two decades and often spent long stretches of time there, so Adam needed at least a month to live like a local and get a feel for it. After all, Venice was as different of a world as it could be from anything he had ever experienced.

In order to put this grand plan in motion however, I needed to quit my lucrative job. 

Adam, being 100% all in, said simply, “Do it.” 

So for the time in my 20+ year career, I quit my job. 

We spent that month in Venice walking, thinking, and asking everyone I’d known for years what they thought of the idea. The response was very supportive and by the end of the month, as we were standing in the middle of Piazza San Marco, I looked into Adam’s eyes and asked, “So… do you think you could see yourself living here?” He smiled and said simply, “I’ll call the movers.” All that was left was to set a date, which we agreed would be December 1st, 2014. 

We had a huge garage sale to get rid of everything we didn’t want to bring, sold our two cars, rented out our house, made arrangements to bring our two dogs and cat, bought 2 one way ticket to Venice and stuck to that date. There were naysayers who said it would never work. We certainly proved them wrong! 

Within the first six months, we built our food tours into a success, becoming the number one business of its kind on TripAdvisor. We ran two tours a day, five days a week and we stayed consistently sold out for months in advance. We ate, drank, told stories and made friends for a living. It was the best job either of us ever had. 

For five years straight, we were on top of the world, until… in early 2020, northern Italy, including Venice, had become the epicenter for the covid pandemic. We, like so many others, were forced to close our business. Tourism no longer existed. 

At first, we thought (or rather hoped) that the pandemic would come and go, allowing us to reopen and continue living our best lives. 

In April of 2020, I became very sick and was diagnosed with pneumonia and Bell’s Palsy. 

It was 3 days in the hospital for me, followed by 2 weeks of heavy antibiotics. Feeling better but not 100%, by July, I was back in the hospital with pneumonia again. Though I truly believe I had Covid, testing wasn’t reliable in the beginning stages of the pandemic. 

By August, we came to the heartbreaking realisation that it could be years, if ever, before tourism would return strong enough for our business to sustain us. We used to vacation in Ireland to escape the brutal, tropical heat and humidity of Venetian summers. But this time, our trip to Ireland would be permanent, a place to start over, to create a business that wasn’t tourism reliant. It made sense. Ireland after all, was where we planned to retire eventually. 

In September 2020, our move to Ireland was complete. Ok, time to regroup and put plan B into action. Nope! Three weeks after relocating, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. We hadn’t even unpacked. Those boxes stayed unpacked for the next six months while I underwent life saving surgeries and treatment. At the end of it all, I was given the all clear. 

Our boxes now unpacked, our house now a home, we have created our own Eden. We successfully made things right in our world. 

Today is a day of celebration, a testament to the power of love and commitment. I am so grateful for everything that Adam has done for me, for the life we’ve created together, and for the unbreakable bond we share. Our love is precious, treasured, and it remains at the very top of all the things I am grateful for in this life. Here’s to many more years of happiness, love, and adventure together! 🍾🥂

Amore Captus