Reflections on 50 Years
Being married fifty years is, of course, an event which lends itself to contemplation, reflection and, in my case, a blog post.
from The Princess Bride
It may be the most unnatural of states, marriage, in my opinion. You start in your family of origin but within twenty plus years or so, the reasonable expectation is that you set off on your own. If you have roommates during this time, there really is no commitment to remain with that person(s). If things go south, everyone moves on. You might remain friends; perhaps you choose never to darken their doorway again. And yes, that can be replicated in marriage. You can separate and/or divorce. Current statistics indicate that 35-50% of first marriages end in divorce. For second marriages, the number rises to 67%. According to the World Population Review, Minnesota (aka the land of Minnesota Nice and Long Winters, which I believe are contributing factors to this statistic), ranks among the bottom of states in its divorce rate, which is 10.2%.
With that data, it can be deduced that the majority of people who enter into what Christians refer to as the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony make the best of it and remain with their spouse through the years. Or, as in our case, fifty (that's a big 5-0 for those of you keeping score) years. So let's focus on that.
Dan and I met in November, 1969, at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He and his roommate, Dave Ricca, volunteered to coach what was then (pre Title IX) my dorm floor's powderpuff basketball team. I did not attend the first practice because my sports were flag football and volleyball, not basketball. When my friends returned, I asked if the coaches were cute and they indicated that Danny was (no offense, Ricca). That was enough to get me to join the team and here we are today.
Copious amounts have been written on what constitutes or contributes to a good/healthy/survivable marriage. I've given this considerable thought as our fiftieth approaches and believe I have, in our case, boiled it down to this. What follows is solely my opinion.
Mary (to Dan): "You're so predictable!"
Dan (in response to Mary): "I would think you would find that comforting."
We can stand on opposite sides of the Grand Canyon, yet somehow or other still make it across to reconnect. Neither of us can completely fill each other's holes. Over the years, we learned it was acceptable, indeed advisable, to find other people or activities to do that and not hold the entirely unreasonable expectation it is up to the Spousal Unit™ to conduct that action. So much have we explored about life, love, marriage, family, each other over the years while so much remains to be learned.
Now there is, I believe, a significant gap between learning something and then putting it into action, an even greater divide between learning and making it part and parcel of your actionable self. This leads, inevitably, to the revisiting of "things that drive me crazy" about the spouse, occasionally accompanied by how superior your way, your perspective, your family (etcetera, etcetera, etcetera) is to whatever low-brow, ill-advised, impossible perspective the spouse is taking. Will they never learn? you think.
Making it fifty years, I think, is best done with the measure of what you learn and braid into the relationship.
Recently I overheard Dan tell a friend about our upcoming Anniversary Celebration Open House on August 13 (Staring Lake Park, 12-3, vow renewal at 1:30, all welcome). He described marriage as fifty years of tolerance. I think that is pretty damn close to the truth.
He is not the man I thought I married. I had high hopes for how he might change.
I am not the woman he thought he married, with the same high hopes.
We don't always release that wild eyed payoff. Over fifty years, we have acknowledged the insanity of repeating the same action with the expectation of different results. And sometimes, we let it go and other times, we don't.
But we've learned not to drown ourselves and each other. At least most of the time. We've found, in our own respective, unique ways, paths with multiple branches that allow plenty of room to walk side by side, or one in front and one following, and most importantly, detours where we wander by ourselves to refresh our souls, contemplate our relationship, explore room for improvement.
Admittedly there were moments along the way where we seriously questioned the wisdom of the coming together again. And for whatever reasons we found that discounted blowing it up, we returned to the Marriage Trail™ and just kept on truckin'.
ME: "You're using the wipers wrong."
DAN: "There's a grading to how the automatic wipers work. I just moved it to wiping more often when it rained harder."
ME: "The wipers do that automatically. You don't have to adjust them."
DAN: "You set the sensitivity for the wipers. You had them on moderate. It was raining harder than that."
ME: (pulling out the owner's manual to prove I'm right. Reading aloud the instructions, voice trails off.) "Oh, (expletive deleted). You're right. I hate to admit you're right but I'll give you this one."
Our lovely couple looks at each other and bursts into laughter.
Over the years we both might have gotten really, really mad over this or another similar/dissimilar exchange. And held on to that grudge, depositing it in the garbage bag of why this marriage doesn't work because s/he is so intractable, impossible, uncaring, selfish, etc. Along the Marriage Trail™, we basically jettisoned the largest garbage bag (one accumulates a substantial amount of garbage over the years) and replaced it with a Baggie. Meaning we still can't give it all up--we're flawed humans after all--but at least it doesn't sit in the sun and fester so when we open it, it is one stinky mess. The Baggie is much more manageable, easier to empty and rinse out, less available space for contents.
So what has fifty years wrought? A brief listing:
4 lovely children (girl, boy, girl, girl) along with their spouses/significant others
8 equally if not more so lovely and of course the best and brightest and most talented grandchildren (girl, boy, boy, boy, girl, girl, boy, boy, ages 12-4)
10 Rotary exchange students (the first from South Africa, when I was pregnant with Bridget, the last from Thailand when we already had 3 grandchildren--in between students from New Zealand; Germany; Moldova; India; France; Lithuania; Argentina, six exchange grandchildren)
Too many to enumerate trips to our hometowns of Chicago and Kankakee to ensure our children were well connected with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins
Friends chosen as family (you know who you are and thank you. You are the wedding topper on our anniversary cake.)
Pets (2 hamsters, 5 dogs, 4 cats)
6 abodes (apartment in Inver Grove Heights, townhome in Burnsville, lot in Eagan we never built on and sold, story and a half Tudor in southwest-ish Minneapolis, my (forever) home in Minnetonka, apartment in Richfield)
26 cars (for those of you interested, contact Dan. He has compiled a list.)
Visits to 14 National Parks
Visits to most of the United States (missing Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota)
Visits to 9 European countries, predominantly western Europe
Lots and lots and lots of laughter and tears, strife and success, good days and bad days and the mediocre ones in between
Where, then, do we go from here? We're facing down the inevitability of growing older, faculties already diminishing if not actually failing, and there are benefits and drawbacks to doing this in tandem. We handled Dan's car accident pretty well (cf: Can You Come Get the Dog? on this blog), I think. We made the big downsizing move, albeit fraught with distress on my part. I believe we are confident we can face whatever get tossed (or thrown) in our direction and emerge intact on the other side, with love and grace.
Not sure, after fifty years, you can ask for too much more than that.
You can ask for love.
When we married fifty years ago, two popular readings at wedding ceremonies in the early seventies were 1 Corinthians 13 (which we included) and a reading from Kahil Gibran's The Prophet (which we did not have). What we did have then, and still have, is love.
I love Dan. I have loved him long and deep and hard and even when I didn't love him, I still love him.
According to Corinthians, Love is patient, love is kind...it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. This is both a big ask and one that has served as a beacon when I've kept my heart open to it.
Kahil Gibran reminds us: When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.” And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Wow. Not sure I have always been successful in this with Dan, but there surely have been moments when I have felt as if we both were in the heart of God. What a high gift and pleasure. As many of you know, our oldest grandson, Jackson, has special needs due to a de novo genetic mutation, a duplication of the FoxG1 gene. One night, shortly after his preliminary diagnosis with Infantile Spasms, Dan and I spent the night in order to give his parents a break. I was lying in bed while Dan rocked Jackson and sang to soothe him, something he has done with all our grandchildren. I felt as if I could not love him more. Definitively a moment in the heart of God.
I love Dan. He is, hands down, the nicest person I know. He tolerates my foibles better than I tolerate his, and that is high praise. He has supported my career even when what I was pursuing was wildly inconvenient for him. I say it drives me crazy when he sits back and doesn't do the planning, but that is a wise, loving course of action on his part.
For the most part, our love for each other has carried us through. Our love helped us to learn to negotiate and compromise. Our love wrapped us together in our lowest moments and, as the song says, has lifted us up where we belong.
So, yes. There is love. And tolerance. And hope. And grace. And trust. Tenacity. Partnership. Communication.
And Dan. And me.
Follow me where I go, what I do, who I know
Make it part of you to be a part of me.
Follow me up and down,
All the way and all around,
Take my hand and say you'll follow me.
You see I'd like to share my life with you
And show you things I've seen,
Places that I'm going to
Places where I've been
To have you there beside me
To never be alone
And all the time that you're with me,
We will be at home.
I walked down the aisle to this song.
One Hand, One Heart played at some point in the wedding and I think maybe my friend, Felicia, sang it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5Mi6-AiXI4And today, August 4, I thank you, God, for most this amazing day.
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
--e.e.cummings
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