30 years

Today is my thirtieth wedding anniversary. It was exactly thirty years ago today (November, 23 1979) on a Friday after Thanksgiving Day, Jay and I got married. We both had the day off so it was a long weekend.

That’s a long time. I don’t mean the weekend but the thirty years. I wish I had some words of wisdom to pass on as tips on how we did it. I am still trying to figure it out and maybe that is a tip in itself. You have to keep figuring it out.
We are not the most similar of couples. There are a few obvious differences.
I am an early riser. He likes to sleep in.
I can’t sit still. He would rather relax.
Those things have actually come to balance out in the long run. I get up early and am off doing things while he is still relaxing. He gets me to sit and relax when he knows I’ve wound myself too tight. He can see that happening to me when I am not aware.
He worries when I am not feeling well. It is something that has surprised me of late when I’ve seen it in his face. It shows in the time he has taken to be attentive. I can’t tell you how much his doing something as simple as rubbing the knot out of my back means to me. It is the simple things that mean the most.
We are not big on grand gestures and gifts. We had a conversation last week that we would not be out purchasing expensive anniversary gifts. We have been making upgrades to the house and would rather put the money there.
It’s about future plans that we keep deciding together.
So today we might not be doing too much of anything special but that is our preference. I’ve tried to leave it to him to decide and he keeps asking me. It’s become a game back and forth that we have just about perfected through the years. Our real life dialogues could feed any prime time comedy show. He has always been able to make me laugh.  It’s just that kind of humorous, loving things we have done along the way to get us to this place.
So who would have thought?
He likes war movies. I like to read books.
He likes to fish. I like to run on the beach.
For thirty years with all the differences between us, we keep arriving at the same place.
Figuring it out seems to have worked best.
TT