Our 30th Wedding Anniversary
The cover of this year's anniversary card from Mike.
Thirty years ago today my husband Mike and I got married. Thirty years ago we were in our early twenties and I walked down the long aisle of Immaculate Conception Church and met my future husband at the altar! Thirty years ago I didn’t know half of what I know now, but back then I thought I knew more. I bet Mike would say the same thing about himself if you asked him.
It’s astonishing to me that thirty years have been lived so quickly. It seems like yesterday we were young twenty-somethings who were hard working and partying harder. We worked long hours and our weekends started with Thursday night drinks at Charlie Brown’s Bar and Restaurant with Mike’s then-officemates. We bought and began to renovate a wreck of a house to suit us just so. We were happy.
As thirty-somethings we continued to work hard, putting in long hours to build our respective careers, but we added “parents” and “community volunteers” to our curriculum vitae. And we continued to renovate that wreck of a house in our “spare” time. We were happy.
As forty-somethings I left my long-held corporate career and dove into life as a stay-at-home Mom to then-middle schoolers, with all the committees, teams and complications it brought, while Mike held steady at his corporate job. Our church and community benefitted from our hours of volunteering. And in the midst of it all, we built our dream house. We suffered economic hardship and Mike lost his Mom to cancer and I lost my dad to cancer; we learned that life has its ups and downs and we had to work sometimes to find the happy.
Our Dream House: A Team Effort.
As young fifty-somethings Mike continues to work long hours at his corporate job, but now he makes time for fun: He competes in long-distance races, play cards with his friends, and fishes more. I am a writer and a go-to person for getting things (you name it) done and making things (you name it) happen, but now I savor lunches with my sister and my friends and I linger over my morning cup of tea while I daydream. Our lives are rich and full. We’ve lost more people whom we love, notably my older sister, but we are learning that happy still finds its way back into our lives. We are walking together into the future. God willing, we will become sixty-somethings together.
Mike and I have shared many sunsets. . .and I hope we share many more.
Adventures of a Middle Age Mom 