Tuesday 10 February 2015

Silver Anniversary

At 10.30 we will cross that 'threshold' metaphorically to our silver anniversary.

The years fly. I can barely remember this time 25 yrs ago.

The future was before us, a blank slate, waiting to be filled with shared dreams and adventures.A future that was filled with all the hope and promise two young twenty-somethings with the world at their feet could ever imagine.

When I think of all we have been through together, the brilliant and not so. Life has sometimes thrown us what we least expected but we survived by the grace of God..

Hard times can rock the boat , sink the love.We have certainly had our share of hard times...so the kayaks were a great gift - staying afloat through whatever came our way. We've endured many obstacles and and been through storms of infertility, loss of our daughter and both had cancer.

It's hard to believe that 25 years have gone by since we stood together and our marriage vows were first spoken...how did we get this old ?

I had the crop the ugly concrete out. The wedding album is somewhere.

 
We have survived owner building a home , living in a caravan (x 3), renovations and running our own business and working together for 19 years.We also suffered the loss of our daughter born still.

The strength to stay together in the face of these trials has truly been a gift from God; our faith has held us up tremendously.I give thanks to God.

There are no secrets I can share, no recipes for love , no magic formula for why our relationship has out lasted many others. I don’t think my hubby and I are any better at this spouse/husband/wife gig than others around us.

I can't begin to know or understand what other peoples reasons were, but I’ve no doubt they were good enough reasons. Sometimes there isn't even 'reason' enough. Not for a minute do I consider or judge couples that divorce; that didn’t try hard enough to make it work, or love each other enough, or any other 'enoughs'.

For many people divorce is not the first line of defense. It can happen sometimes when one person is least expecting it. I know that even when a marriage is suffering or plain bad , deciding to end it is painful.

Love is an act of the will, and can be expressed in various degrees. It isn't always truly, madly deeply.
I hope that we have a respite from the struggles and can pause a moment , to just reflect and recognize all that we do have and enjoy it simply for what it is, without thinking about what it is not.

I feel blessed to have found someone I can live with in relative happiness and who can say the same about me or perhaps we just put up with each other faults & all.

Really I wonder if we’ve just been lucky... meeting as we did on a blind date via the radio (pre internet).

I shouldn’t ever take for granted what I have and to always put an effort into showing my long suffering dear husband that I appreciate him. Like many others I can be difficult to live with sometimes...



9125 days
219,000 hours

hundreds of second chances !