Blogtober 25, 2014

Next week, I will be married to The Hubs for 32 years.  Quite a feat for these-a-days.  Our anniversary has other things on the calendar, and the weekend after is filled with Trick or Treaters and a wedding of a friend. So we will probably find time to dress up a little and pick a restaurant that won't ask if we want fries with that.

I don't know that we have been doing it subconsciously, but we have been bringing up memories a lot  lately.

You know your marriage is strong when you can go through MAJOR home improvement. We have ripped down walls, and built on, and spent Christmases (notice- more than one) with nothing but plywood floors and dry wall on the walls.  Our 100+ year old house was in need of a LOT of TLC when we bought it when we were first married, and we have lived in it ever since.  We have never had the money to hire work done, although we did have someone build the stick portion of the new addition -we finished it off.  Because you do the work yourself, we learned that doing the 40 hours a week thing to be able to pay for the new addition, you have to do the work at night and on the weekends, and therefore, is probably not done as fast as you would like, but there is a sense of pride for a home you built yourself. Our photo albums are full of before and afters, and our kids at different ages with hammers in their hands.

I worked for Hubs for 4 years at his job. Not many marriages could deal with that. That's 24/7.  Lots of give and take and boundaries and compromise.  Not only are you dealing with opinions at home, but he is your boss too.  You want to come home and gripe about the day at work, (or the boss or the employee) and you can't.  Then the big boss decided to let me go, and Hubs had to give me the news.  That was fun. (NOT!)

Once we had the house pretty much done, it was almost time for the kids to go to college.  Big house for the two of us!  This is when the test STARTS... can you rattle around in a house with just the two of you? Man, you'd better LIKE that other person, because now there is no buffer.

We have grown and adapted.  He "gets" me now.  Something he had to learn, and I am not sure that lesson isn't much more than just learning toleration.  I think spouses of artists need a few  more kudos.  I know my mind goes a thousand directions at once, and I will take tangents in my conversation and head off in another direction, and completely lose the point in the whole thing.  He will ask, and I will say, TRY TO KEEP UP, WILL YA?

Two great kids, community, family and countless jobs, ups, downs, laughs and tears, birth, death, sickness, health, rich and poor, we have weathered it ok.  Those lines in the wedding vows are true tests, and are taken for granted at the start of a couples journey.  Now I say, Whew!

At this point, I don't think I have the oomph in me to start training another one.  And this one makes me laugh, usually when I don't want to.  Or shouldn't.  Good feature to have in a life partner. Guess I'll keep him.

So when we get to raise our glasses at that special meal we are using to celebrate with, I will hope the rest of the journey is an easy one, and there are many more.

Happy Anniversary!  Stay tuned!