Anniversary Weekend

Can't help myself - have to brag: my husband and I will be celebrating our 46th year of marriage tomorrow!  When people learn we're having an anniversary, they usually ask, "How many years?" and when they hear the answer, most respond with astonishment followed by a "Good for you!"

Definitely 'good for us'.  It hasn't always been easy but it's always been worth it, and I love that man more today than I knew it would be possible to love him when we said our "I do's" in 1965.  I think the past three years have been the most harrowing as far as finances are concerned, but we give thanks that we have a roof over our heads, the light bill is paid for and we have food in the pantry.  Our priorities change with the current situation - maybe we wish that weren't so - but we deal with it.

Take this weekend as an example of the resiliency of our relationship.  Because of two recent and unforeseen jobs my husband recently had (he's a freelance artist and those have been unheard of during this Great Recession), we had decided to splurge a bit going out for drinks and dancing this evening, then dinner out tomorrow night.  All those plans evaporated when we learned, on Friday afternoon, that all the money he'd made was going to have to go into unexpected car repairs.  Were we disappointed?  Of course.  Were we angry about our plight?  Briefly.

BUT.  Because we work constantly on helping each other weather the unexpected, it didn't take long for us to come up with an alternative, stay-at-home evening that would not require any money outlay but would give us some special time together to mark our important occasion.  No, it isn't what we planned but wishing things were different won't make them so, and expending energies moaning about it won't result in changing what can't be changed. So, with the strength of my partner, coupled with attitude adjustment on both our parts, we make do and enjoy what we can.

I don't want to sound like some wise sage, or somebody who is always happy about dealing with the unexpected; neither of those is true; I am human.  I've just learned, over many, many years of living with a man who can always make the worst situtation in the world livable - and who's taught me how to accept that edict - that as long as we never miss out on what could be because we're too busy lamenting what might have been, our marriage is the better for it.  And that's what we'll celebrate this weekend and toast to many, many more years of the same.