Do you know where you were twenty years ago today?
How about twenty years ago this minute?
Yeah … I do.
I was running around my hometown finding flowers and preparing for my wedding … and discovering that the wedding wine had been stolen in the night. So I had to find a working telephone amongst the summer camps on the lake where we were having the reception. This was in the days before cellphones and all.
I was getting married. To LightHusband. My first husband. My parents’ favorite son-in-law … I’m their favorite daughter (just so you know).
I’m also their only daughter. 😉
I met LightHusband (officially) when I was twenty-two years old. We began dating about 6 months later. We’ve been together ever since. That’s now been more than half of my life.
We were married in an antique church in my hometown by the minister who had been LightHusband’s minister all of his growing up years. The church still has box pews, no electricity or heat and an old-fashioned pump organ. The Methodist Church ladies “catered” our reception at Memorial Hall on Mirror Lake. An ad hoc band made up of friends played for dancing. Since LightHusband forgot the CD with our first dance on it, we danced to “Help Me Make It Through The Night,” while all of our friends and family laughed and laughed … so did we. We could hardly dance we were laughing so hard.
The party and dance was the best ever … our friends still talk about it. We told people to bring their swimsuits so they could jump in the lake after the formalities … and they did. They also brought canoes and kayaks and other assorted water fun devices. So there were drippy happy people on the dance floor, and dressed up formal people and all having fun … especially LightHusband’s 85 yo grandmother who turned off her hearing aid and dove in. It was the first and perhaps only time I’ve seen my parents dance together … my dad isn’t much of a dancer (he’s a thinker).
The path these last 20 years has been convoluted, circuitous and full of surprises both good and bad. In many respects our wedding was a foreshadowing of our marriage. Our life has been full of drippy happy people and people dressed formally. We have told people that we do not do things in the regularly expected manner; some take us at our word and some just enjoy the show. There have been unpleasant and pleasant surprises and we’ve rolled with them. Well … LightHusband has rolled with them … (in the words of Larry Vaughn) “…I have spent a magnificent amount of energy trying to change things I cannot change.”
Today we are going to revisit some things we “used to do.” Spend time together. The LightChildren will go spend the night at friend’s houses and we are heading out on an adventure. I think we’ll talk about the next 20 years and the last and be glad with one another.
UPDATE:
Before we left this enormous delivery of 20 roses came to our door!! I was completely surprised. LightHusband has (almost) never had flowers delivered. I knocked him over with a hug. A little while after the shock wore off he asked if I was surprised. I looked at him sideways. He chuckled and said, “Good. My strategy is working.” To which I replied, “Oh yes … strategic oblivion. Good idea!!” And we both fell out with laughter.
