Happy Anniversary to Me
8:41 a.m.
And yet (if I may begin not just a sentence but a new paragraph with �and�), marriage is a very difficult institution to maintain. There have been many occasions when it would have been so easy to walk away (except it�s never easy to walk away, especially when you have a child and you�re living far from your family and have no way to support yourself), but somehow we stuck it out. There have been some really ugly moments, when one or the other of us actually used the �D�-word (although I have thought the �D�-word, I have never actually uttered it out loud), to be replaced with more sober (literally) reflection in the morning. The one binding factor has always been our unwavering love for each other.
Hubby and I met at university. He was a year ahead of me (although I am actually two years older, having taken time out between highschool and higher school) and was a bit of a star in the faculty of music. He was a virtuoso classical guitarist, a budding composer, a straight-A student, and he was in one of the �cool� crowds. I met him when I was in first year; I had come into the cafeteria and, not really knowing that many people yet, had joined two men I knew, one of them a theory professor and the other a mature student, an organist, who sang in the choir. I tired quickly of their conversation and turned to the cute guy who was copying out music on manuscript paper opposite me. He was drawing the neatest, tiniest noteheads I had ever seen. We chatted, and after that we had a nodding acquaintance in the hallways when we met.
It wasn�t until my third year (his fourth) that things got interesting. He had written a guitar concerto to play on his graduation recital (he was a guitar performance major, composition was just something else he did at that point) and was attempting to photocopy back-to-back copies of the parts when I met him in the music office. He was having a very hard time of it. He either got the paper in upside-down or backwards, printing one page directly on top of another, and was becoming rather vexed. Enter the part-time legal secretary, vastly experienced with photocopy machines and IBM seIectrics (anyone remember them?). I quickly sorted him out and he got his parts copied. I was also wearing a tight red turtleneck sweater which left nothing to the imagination regarding the shape and size of my breasts, and I think that is what convinced him to ask me out.
And (there I go again) the rest is history. I�ve mentioned elsewhere (recently yet) that I was quite the promiscuous tart when I was at university. When I started dating Hubby, I was seeing someone else who gave me his blessing to go and pursue this new relationship. (Apparently Hubby was rather a rake as well. To our credit, our profligate pasts have never, ever, been a source of conflict or vindictiveness.) Once Hubby and I made if �official� that we were a couple, we only had eyes for each other. He graduated from Western that spring after not getting a R0tary scholarship to go to Nice to study guitar with AIexandre Lag0ya but instead landing a sizeable grant to go to the University of Michigan to study composition. If he had gone to France, we probably would have ceased to exist as a couple. Since he was only three hours� travelling time away, we continued to see each other twice a month (he would drive to London, and I would take the train to Windsor where he would pick me up) and at Christmas he asked me to marry him, which I did, 23 years ago today.
We were married by a Unitarian chaplain in my parents� living room (it was extremely crowded). One of his mother�s friends kept stopping me afterwards as I worked my way through the guests, greeting me repeatedly as �Mrs. Hubby� until I asked her why she was doing that. She asked me how it felt to sign my maiden name for the last time in the register, and I replied that it wasn�t the last time: I was keeping my name. That sort of shocked her (she�s dead now, but I�m sure my revelation had nothing to do with it). We honeymooned on the Cab0t Trail in Cape Bret0n, N0va Sc0tia, almost getting divorced that first day of driving where Highway 20 splits to become 20 and 40, getting off and on the road five times before deciding to take the 40 (wrong choice, but 20 would have been a bad idea too). I think we have had our worst arguments when we�ve been driving, which probably means something. However, we continue to take trips in the car together.
I have no words of wisdom for how to sustain a marriage except that it requires a lot of sacrifice and compromise. It is not easy for two people with strong personalities who are basically incompatible to continue to live together for this long, forsaking all others. But I can honestly say that it gets better after it gets worse. If you stick with something long enough, you eventually learn to live with it.
from krugerpak007 :
Mazal Tov! Those pictures are very moving and really lovely. xoxo
from tcklyrpharsn :
awwwwwwwwwwww shucks. congrats darling, and to hubby as well. you kids look as cute now as you ever did. xxxx
from cosmicrayola :
What a beautiful couple you are!! Happy Anniversary!
from giftofflesh :
Happy anniversary! :-D
from harri3tspy :
Happy Anniversary! What a lovely picture. And I have to say, marriage must suit you, because you look almost exactly the same in your more recent photos as you do in that one.
from time2 :
first of all, aren't you guys cute...Tell A I want a tie just like his. Second, that scientology story was very amusing, I want to be a scientologist...I think that is a good title for a song.
from ashahands :
Happy Anniversary! Loved the old pics!
from coldandgray :
Happy Anniversary! You guys are so cute!
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