Today is my 55th wedding anniversary. Fifty five years, over three quarters of my life spent with one man. It is hard for me to believe that so much time has passed. I know that some people reading this will think we must be a really old couple. When I was young, I could never have imagined being married this long and certainly not still being so active and alive.
We will be spending our anniversary babysitting our three year old great grandson which we do every other week. In two weeks we will be leaving for a 12 day tour of Scandinavia, Germany, and Russia. We are active, enthusiastic, and busy.
We have been extremely lucky and we know it. First, we found someone to love. Someone compatible, though at first we seemed to have more differences than things in common. Ron was very athletic, outgoing, and had spent his entire life in one place. He had lots of friends that he had known since grade school.
I on the other hand, was a book worm, and didn't even watch sports let alone participate. I had lived in three states, gone to several schools and had spent most of my senior year in high school working. But somehow in spite of those differences, we made it work.
In all the important things we were in agreement. We both valued honesty, loyalty, hard work and we loved each other. When our children came along, our lives revolved around them. We were involved in Little League, Brownies, Boy Scouts and PTA. We were the parents who everyone depended on. Our house was always full as were our hearts.
And then one day, the kids were gone, (not for long, but that's another story). We were alone again. What would we do now? Well, we fell in love again and for a few years we played like a couple of kids. We did silly things like driving to Nashville, TN for dinner on the spur of the moment. We went to Disneyworld without kids for our 25th anniversary. We partied with friends and just enjoyed being a couple. We had never had a honeymoon. By the time we were in our early twenties, we had three children. Now we had time to bond as a couple.
Of course, after a few years our grandchildren came along and we began a new phase of our marriage. Now we are great grandparents. If you think grandchildren are wonderful, just wait until you have great grandchildren. You have more time to enjoy them. You have had years of experience and you are able to relax more with them.
So here we are, fifty five years later. We are lucky, we have a few health problems but are still mobile. We have a little more disposable income so we are able to do things we enjoy. We are fulfilling our bucket list. Most importantly, we still enjoy being together. One of the advantages of spending so many years together and living through all the joys and tragedies of life is that we have a lot to talk about. We share the same memories and spend many hours talking about them. But we also spend time planning the future. We know life is short and we embrace each day. As the poet said, "Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be."
