Today is my 29th wedding anniversary. 2 9. The number is just unbelievable to me. Then when I figure that we dated about 4 years before we got married I feel absolutely ancient!
When we were dating disco was in. Mr. Pete had a pair of polyester pants that I just loved! They were dark green down by the hem and as the material went higher up his body the color got lighter and lighter until they were a light cream color around his waste. And at 6 foot 1 and 170 pounds these pants made him look even longer and leaner if that was possible! He also had shiny long hair to about his shoulders and I thought he was gorgeous.
We recently found Mr. Pete’s senior picture and Calvin and Sam squealed with laughter! There was their Dad with his beautiful hair and beads around his neck. It was so 1976!!
And was I any better? I remember my sister and I sewing our own pant suits and the wider the bell at the bottom of the pant, the better! Platform shoes? You bet! And I remember also having a golden slave bracelet that I wore on my upper arm. I thought it looked good against my dark skin. The best outfit I ever made (and one that got Pete’s attention) was a white elephant bell bottom pant with a white halter of the same material. I shudder to think that I left the house looking like that but I did and I still have the pattern for that outfit too.
And while this all feels like a long time ago, at the same times it seems like yesterday too. I remember standing in the receiving line at my wedding thinking how mathematically good it was to get married at 20, because all of my big anniversaries would come during big anniversary years. I was so optimistic.
I don’t feel any differently. Physically this is not what I thought my late 40s would feel like. Although I enjoy an afternoon nap a few times a week, I think that is more from being the mother of a 3 year old than being almost 50. Mr. Pete too is in extremely good health (as he demonstrated last weekend when he hiked 1.2 miles through the mosquito infested forest with a 30 pound toddler on his shoulders to get to Lake Michigan!). I hope this isn’t the calm before the storm.
What mostly amazes me about the past 29 years are all the souls that are here now that weren’t then. We have oodles of nieces and nephews that weren’t with us 29 years ago, as well as the 7 souls that our own marriage has been blessed with. Each one is an individual that I can’t imagine not knowing before.
And of course there have been a lot of losses. My niece just dropped over boxes of stuff from of my mom’s. As I was going through it I kept finding cards and letters from aunts and uncles that have long since passed.
It is always a bit of a jolt to read something in my the handwriting of either of my beloved grandparents.
Next year will hopefully be the big 30th. I think we are actually going to try to have something big. Not as big as a wedding reception but maybe rent one of the lodges int he metropark and have some friends and family. I hope we can renew our vows as well. 30 years is a long time.
But I also want to look forward. Maybe we have already passed the halfway mark in our marriage. We still have kids to raise and will have a household to manage for years to come.
But is after that the part where we age gracefully together? It’s hard not to be a little sad about that.
But if it it’s something I can’t change then maybe it’s something we just do together in faith, patience and love, letting the lessons we’ve learned over the years of our marriage, prepare us for what is to come.
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