How to Write an Anniversary Letter

The hardest anniversary letter is for the person who already knows everything. The trick is the ledger: not "all these wonderful years," but the small arithmetic only the two of you would keep.

How to write it: three rules of restrained prose

Do the private math: years together counted in rented flats, dead houseplants, or phones replaced. Your numbers, not Hallmark's.
Name one ordinary evening and describe it exactly — the walk, the takeout order, which side of the bed.
End with the next number, not the last: "Year nine starts tomorrow. The faucet still drips."

Pick the "love letter" mode, put "the person who already knows your stories" in the first field, and let the restraint do the rest.

Sample

Sample · Anniversary

Eight years. Four flats. Two dead ficus trees.

Tonight is pad thai, which is to say: Tuesday.

- - -

She asked if I remembered our first date.

I remembered the parking meter. Two hours, twenty cents short. She paid the ticket. Year nine starts tomorrow.

Write my love letter

How to Write an Anniversary Letter

How to write it: three rules of restrained prose

Sample

Keep reading