Milestones

O.k. I admit it. I'm stumped. Don't know what to write and don't know how to start it.

Why?

I am talking about the fact that we have just celebrated our 20th anniversary - Just in case you think you didn't hear me right, I said, my husband and I have been married for twenty years. We have made it to the platinum anniversary! (or china if you are more traditional)

I just find it unbelievable to look back twenty years, and find him at the beginning of that number. This means that I have known my husband longer than the time that I lived at home with my parents.

This means that I am middle aged.

This means that our children are no longer little.

This means a new season of life is beginning.

I don't know if I can take that!

What have I learned in twenty years? Well probably nothing earth shattering that I could go on the speaking circuit and talk about, but I will share a few things that I have thought of:

• It is possible to be married to the same person this long, and still find out new things about him. For the first twelve or more years of our married life, I made him pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. I thought to myself "I'd better make pumpkin pie for him, because he likes pumpkin pie". After many years of doing this, one day he mentioned that he didn't really like pumpkin pie. It is cherry pie he likes.


• It is good to be married to a person who is completely opposite to you. He is an incurable optimist. His glass is not only half full, but it's got chocolate milk in it. If there's a storm is howling, he is looking out the window whoo hooing about how much he loves the powerful display. I , on the other hand, am generally curled up in a ball at the end of the bed with the covers over me, trying to shut the sounds out. One time, when I was boo=hooing about all the bills we had and how were we ever going to pay them on such a paltry salary, he looked at the pile and commented "well at least now, we know exactly what we owe".


• I have learned that while the Bible says "In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry," (Ephesians 4:26) , there is value in going to bed, and keeping your mouth shut, because sometimes a good night's sleep is what you need to help you forget the all-important point you were going to make in the heat of the argument.


• It is both fun and comforting to have or make jokes about everything and nothing. He is a person who can make me laugh about painful situations and that helps me get through them. He has learned to laugh at my jokes. Just tonight I made some veiled reference to something that we'd talked about several days ago and he laughed at how clever I was. I just wish I could remember what it was I said!

Twenty years huh? Who'da thunk it? I used to look at people with that many years under their belt, and wonder how they had done it. I think the answer is that they did it one day, and sometimes one moment, at a time. There's a great line from "The Princess Bride" where the dread Pirate Roberts says to his young apprentice "Good night Wesley, sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning". I love that because it reminds me to take each moment and live it well because I don't know how many moments I will get. I do feel blessed for the 27024000 moments we've had. I look forward to the next one...and the next one after that until we reach...well, you can do the math on that.

Happy Twentieth Anniversary Babe!