Looking together in the same direction

Shana and I have been together since we were 16. Same age, same stage: two teenagers who decided to build a life side by side with no idea of the size of what they were starting. More than two decades and three children later, it's what I'm proudest of.

The line we chose at our wedding came from Saint-Exupéry: love is not looking at each other, but looking together in the same direction. It took me a while to understand its weight. When you join someone very early, the temptation is to live looking at each other — demanding, comparing, adjusting. What truly holds is the opposite: having a shared course and rowing toward it, even on the days when one is more tired than the other.

Growing up together from so early was the biggest challenge and, at the same time, the biggest advantage. A challenge because we changed a lot — the person you are at 16 isn't the one twenty years later, and it was two people changing at the same time, with no guarantee of changing in the same direction. An advantage because we formed each other: a good part of who I am was built alongside her.

I have no formula. I have an observation: a long relationship isn't the one that never faces a storm, it's the one that decides, again and again, to keep looking at the same horizon. It's a choice you remake, not a state you reach.

Thank you, Shana, for this journey — and for the course we keep seeing together.