A final Anniversary Worth Celebrating, and I can’t think of a better one. A year ago, I was a Georgia-to-California transplant trying to balance school, work, and the ever-tricky third space where human connections are supposed to happen. Combining all of this, I paradoxically had too little free time, and too much. If I had thought too much about it, I might have never asked out a girl who was a year ahead of me in my graduate program. The demands of a working student’s life could have easily paralyzed any attempt to add more.

But, you guys…seriously. She could talk about best practices in multi-tiered school service delivery models, and actually make you listen. She had a laugh and a smile I couldn’t stop thinking about (and I spent a few days trying). So I went for it. I pulled out every bad joke I could think of to ask her out. She wasn’t scared away.

And so, one year ago on March 7, 2014, I picked up Sarah and we drove off into the murky mists of Getting to Know Each Other. Statistically speaking, it wasn’t likely to work. (Most first dates are monuments to unwarranted optimism.) We went to Disneyland, which is setting the bar pretty damn high out of the gate anyway. If this actually worked, what was I supposed to do for an encore? With no justification, I scared her on the Haunted Mansion. With full justification, she punched me in the arm. And I knew she had some fight, and I knew there was more to find out.

I asked her out a second time. She made me wait three days for a reply. (She claims she was busy. I’m still not sure.) But friends, when my entreaty for a repeat engagement was granted, no bard of old ever saw the clouds part so beautifully. (I still smile walking past the campus fountain where I read her reply.)

One year from that fateful evening at Disneyland, I’ve learned a lot more about Mexican food (the real kind), and she’s heard a lot more bad jokes. I didn’t have time for this. Neither did she. But we found a year, and counting.

I didn’t plan this anniversary right at the end of my little anniversary series. (That would have been a little weird.) It just worked out that way. But it’s a great reminder that Anniversaries Worth Celebrating don’t have to just live in history books. New Anniversaries Worth Celebrating can happen anytime. Go out and make some.