Twenty Eight

Saturday was our wedding anniversary: twenty eight years since I married my best friend.

Of course, when we got married we knew that marriage was hard work - and we expected it to be - occasionally - but we were so much in love and had made such a wise choice of spouse that we didn't expect to have any problems.

Oh, the innocence of youth! Or is it, there are none so blind as those that refuse to see?

I'm not sure when I discovered just how much hard work is required to make a marriage work, but it was fairly early in the piece. I could say that no one warned me that it would be hard work all the time, but the truth is, I wouldn't have listened anyway. I thought I knew better.

Now I know that despite all the hard work, it is definitely worth it. To have someone who loves you no matter what ... who remains committed to you throughout all the years and through all the valleys and mountains ... who, despite the passing years and all claim to beauty long since past, still thinks you're beautiful ... to have years of treasured memories to share together and reflect back on ... to take pride in your growing family ... to know that there is someone who will always be there, always be on your side, always cares, who you can always trust ... again I say it's worth it.

As I look back on twenty eight years I have a picture of two horses harnessed together to pull this cart called marriage. When they're going in the same direction, everything is going fine ... it's when one wants to go off and do things its own way (and we're generally talking about me here) that troubles start. One day I'll learn to pull in harness.

To celebrate our anniversary we began with breakfast in a cafe followed by a walk along the river to look at the local growers and craft markets. Then we picked up some picnic fare and went for a drive upriver until we found the perfect spot for a picnic lunch. Later we watched the sun set on the beach. Despite taking approximately seventy photos (mostly of the sunset), we didn't get a single one of the two of us together. Oh well. Perhaps these ones will suffice:











And for other posts about past anniversaries go here and here.