My beautiful Samantha,

I have spent months trying to put our life into pages, and somehow this is still the part that feels hardest to get right. I can choose a photograph, move a headline, and change a layout until it looks the way I imagined. Finding words that feel big enough for what you mean to me is a different kind of work. But I want to try, because you deserve to hear them. You deserve to know why I made this, and why I would spend all those hours making something that only needed to matter to one person: you.

When I started this magazine, I wanted to surprise you. I wanted you to open something and realize, a little at a time, that every page was ours. Our pictures. Our jokes. Our songs. Our memories. All these pieces of a life that we recognize without needing to explain them to anybody else. I loved imagining the moment you would understand what you were holding. Even before it was finished, thinking about giving it to you made me want to keep going.

And then, somewhere in the middle of making it, I found myself getting another gift from it. I got to go back. I got to look through our pictures slowly, to remember where we were and what that day felt like, to think about the versions of us who had no idea how much was still ahead. Nine years is a lot of life. Looking back at it with a reason to pay attention made me realize how much of my own story has your face in it.

There you are in the places we have been. There you are in the songs I cannot hear without thinking about us. There you are in the memories I reach for when I want to remember something good. And there you are in my life right now, close enough that I sometimes get to look over at you while I am working on something about how much I love you. There is something almost ridiculous about trying to make a whole magazine worthy of the person sitting on the couch beside me. I hope you know I would do it again.

I love the memories that make beautiful pictures. I love that we have those moments to keep. But when I think about what I am grateful for, so much of it looks ordinary from the outside. Being home together. Hearing about your day. Choosing what to watch. Picking up a game together. Having something happen and already knowing who I want to tell. I love sharing a home with you, with Apollo and Athena, and all the little routines that make it ours. I love knowing what it feels like to have you near me.

Those are the parts I wish I could put inside a page exactly as they feel. The comfort of being beside you. The pleasure of making you laugh. The way something becomes a little more interesting because I get to share it with you. A photograph can show where we stood, but it cannot hold everything I felt being there with you. So I kept adding words, and songs, and little details, hoping that together they might bring you a little closer to seeing what I see.

I see a woman I love, and a life I am deeply grateful to be part of. I see someone whose interests I want to learn about, whose reactions I look forward to, and whose happiness matters to me in ways I cannot always explain neatly. I like knowing the things you love. I like finding something and thinking, “Sam would love this.” I like that after nine years, I still get excited about surprising you. I still want to impress you. I still want to be the reason you smile when you open a gift.

That is why there is so much of you in this magazine. The things we watch, the games we play, the music that follows us through the years, and the little jokes that would probably require an explanation if anybody else read them. I wanted you to feel recognized in it. I wanted you to turn a page and think, “Of course he remembered that.” I wanted this to feel like something that could only have been made for you.

Making it meant researching, learning, changing my mind, and spending far longer on details than I expected. There were things I rushed, things I redid, and things I could probably keep adjusting forever if I let myself. But through all of it, the reason stayed the same. I wanted to make you something meaningful. Something you could keep. Something that would still say “I love you” when this anniversary had become another memory.

Two years ago, I got to marry you. I got to stand beside you and make promises about a future we had not lived yet. Now we have two years of marriage behind us, and I get to look at you with more memories, more familiarity, and more reasons to be glad you are my wife. I love being able to call you that. My wife. Even after saying it so many times, there are moments when I stop and think about how much those two words hold.

If I could go back to that day with everything I know now, I would still want to stand there with you. I would still want “Big Love” to be ours. I would still want the life that comes afterward: the adventures, the quiet evenings, the things we figure out together, and all those days that never get a special date on the calendar. I would want you beside me for them.

I do not know everything the next year will bring. I cannot tell you which photograph will become our favorite or which ordinary moment we will end up talking about for years. But I love that there are still so many things I will get to discover with you. There are games we have not played, places we have not seen, jokes we have not made, and versions of ourselves we have not met yet. I want to know you through all of it. I want us to keep making room for each other as we grow.

That is why I want this to become a tradition. I like imagining a little collection of these issues growing over the years. I like imagining us taking one down and finding something we had forgotten, laughing at what we thought was important, and remembering what our life felt like then. I want to give our memories somewhere to live. And I want you to have something you can open whenever you want a reminder that being with you has given me so much worth remembering.

If you ever read this again on a day when we are busy, tired, or distracted, I hope you hear me clearly. I love you. I love the woman you are, and I love getting to keep learning about you. I am grateful for the space you have in my days, for the memories we share, and for the chance to make more. You matter to me in the middle of ordinary life, long after the wrapping paper is gone and the anniversary is over.

Thank you for these nine years. Thank you for the two years I have gotten to be your husband. Thank you for the laughter, the company, the memories, and the home we share. I hope this gift gives you even a little of the feeling I had while making it: that we have something worth looking closely at, worth celebrating, and worth keeping.

Happy second anniversary, Beautiful. I hope you love your first issue. I loved having a life with you to fill it. And I am so excited that we still have more living to do.

With all my love, Sebastian

Your husband. Your editor. Your lifetime subscriber.