{"id":9263,"date":"2014-09-25T15:34:30","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T19:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?p=9263"},"modified":"2014-09-25T15:34:30","modified_gmt":"2014-09-25T19:34:30","slug":"throwback-thursday-the-anniversary-version","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/09\/throwback-thursday-the-anniversary-version.html","title":{"rendered":"throwback Thursday (the anniversary version)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/09\/glen-me-wedding-1976-001.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-9261\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/239\/2014\/09\/glen-me-wedding-1976-001-300x295.jpg\" alt=\"glen &amp; me wedding 1976 001\" width=\"250\" height=\"246\" \/><\/a> Once upon a time <em>(and it was a very long time ago<\/em>) there were a very young man and a very young woman. They fell in love &amp; eventually (much to their parents&#8217; delight) married.<\/p>\n<p>They didn&#8217;t know any ministers &#8212; neither being church-goers &#8212; so they asked their religion professor to marry them. &#8216;<em>Happy to,&#8217; <\/em>he responded. They picked some vows &#8212; Elizabethan ones, for the English major &#8212; and set a date. She bought a dress on sale; he had rings made by one of the groomsmen. It was a GREAT day.<\/p>\n<p>Today, these many years later, they celebrate that day. Because sooo many great things came from it:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Two practically perfect sons<\/li>\n<li>A perfect daughter-in-law<\/li>\n<li>A beyond-perfect grandson<\/li>\n<li>In-laws on both sides who still love us dearly<\/li>\n<li>Travels w\/ our best friends (us!)<\/li>\n<li>The growing &amp; ongoing flowering of a life-long love &amp; friendship<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I know; this is pretty mushy. Oh well! Today, marriage to your college sweetheart &#8212; 1st marriages for each of us &#8212; that grows, deepens, &amp;\u00a0 <em>lasts<\/em>, is indeed a throwback. It was probably equally rare in the throwback days; they were just more discreet in their miseries back then.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9265\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9265\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/09\/anniversary-card.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9265\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/239\/2014\/09\/anniversary-card-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"photo the author\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9265\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">photo the author<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We don&#8217;t have miseries. We do occasionally have disagreements &#8212; and we used to have out&#8217;n&#8217;out knock-down\/dragout fights, as my mother would say. But now? Mostly we talk things out &#8212; a lovely fruit of a gracefully aging tree. Even though <em>no one<\/em> thought our marriage would last (except me!). We&#8217;re as different as the card I gave my beloved this morning &#8212; he&#8217;s a math guy, a techie, a physicist and an engineer. A deepsea fisherman. While I&#8217;m a poet, a writer, a teacher,\u00a0 a journal-keeper &amp; a major ranter on all things.<\/p>\n<p>I asked him once why he didn&#8217;t marry <em>X<\/em> or <em>Y<\/em>. &#8220;<em>She wasn&#8217;t funny,<\/em>&#8221; he replied. And that, my friends, is as much a rule for happy marriage as any. Humour. Because I wanted kids &amp; he didn&#8217;t (we now have 2, plus part-time interests in several nephews &amp; nieces). He wanted to have French bulldogs; I wanted big dogs. We have Frenchies. Another long list, of compromises that don&#8217;t feel like we &#8216;gave up&#8217; anything.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9268\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9268\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/09\/rijksmuseum.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9268\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/239\/2014\/09\/rijksmuseum-300x156.jpg\" alt=\"via google\" width=\"300\" height=\"156\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9268\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">via google<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Instead? They feel like old jokes (humour, remember?), retold &amp; well-loved. Like so many of our stories: the dinner in Algeria where we were served hollow bones (true); always going to the Rijksmuseum every visit to Amsterdam; the first time I cooked for him (and caught his kitchen on fire!).<\/p>\n<p>But I have to add &#8212; it also helps if you both love to travel, place great value on family, and read more than sane people&#8230; And don&#8217;t forget ice cream. You can NOT marry someone who doesn&#8217;t like ice cream. Happiest of anniversaries to us. \u2665<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once upon a time (and it was a very long time ago) there were a very young man and a very young woman. They fell in love &amp; eventually (much to their parents&#8217; delight) married. They didn&#8217;t know any ministers &#8212; neither being church-goers &#8212; so they asked their religion professor to marry them. &#8216;Happy&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,152],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,1280,1223],"class_list":["post-9263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-happiness","category-marriage","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-happiness","tag-marriage"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>throwback Thursday (the anniversary version) - Beginner&#039;s Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Once upon a time (and it was a very long time ago) there were a very young man and a very young woman. 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