Item #27 on my 33 Before 33 list is a special one. I’ve written about how Dan and I first started dating before, but the quick version is this: at a Somerset Patriots game on August 16, 2008, Dan and I sat next to each other, and didn’t stop talking the entire night. Maybe it was the magic of baseball under the lights, but we both felt the spark that night, even if it took us almost exactly two months to go on our first date.

Every summer since then, Dan and I have gone to a Patriots game together, to honor that first spark. Sometimes we go with his parents to celebrate our birthdays, and sometimes it’s just the two of us, but it is now tradition to see a game there each summer, no matter how many other baseball games we see.

Even though there are plenty of other anniversaries now, between our first date and when we moved in together and that whole wedding business, August 16 has always felt especially important, because it’s really where everything started. So when I realized that the Patriots had a home game on August 16 this year, I knew we had to go, in honor of the magic under the lights five summers ago. We were leaving for Cape Cod at 5am the next morning, but we couldn’t miss the chance.

And I’m so, so glad that we went.

The golden hour felt a little more golden, and we drank cold beers and elbowed each other. I made Dan take an awkwardly-too-close self portrait before we found our seats right behind home plate. We got hot dogs and fries, and ended up with juice boxes too, as we unwittingly ordered kids’ meals instead of plain old hot dogs. We sat next to some really obnoxious teenagers – so obnoxious that we moved our seats twice. But the lights were twinkling and the beer was cold and it was me and Dan and baseball, back where it all started. It feels like a million years and yesterday all at once.