20th Anniversary

The Ravishing Mrs. TB and I had our 20th anniversary yesterday.

In my more lucid moments I wonder what I would have thought that a twenty year anniversary would look like.  I am not sure that I particularly had a Hollywood view of marriage in my mind - in fact, I probably did not have much of a vision at all.  Did I expect to married at 20 years?  However, I am sure that whatever I visualized owed far more to the perceived image I had of marriage and less of the examples I had around me.

Interestingly  anniversaries - beyond the first few and the very significant - seem to be a reflection of the life you are actually leading at the time.  Last night was an example:  wedged between tryouts (which were rescheduled), a senior management presentation, and finals we had an anniversary.  We passed each other on the way home - she out to pick up, I inbound to get home.  I was greeted by the Pest control guy, there to spray.  Syrah the Mighty going crazy upstairs, the clock ticks well past seven before The Ravishing Mrs. TB got back.  Dinner?  Yes, we had better have that too.  Blackened catfish and brown rice.  By the time we got done with dinner and cleaning up, it was time for bed.  After all, tomorrow is still a weekday.

Again, this is (I suppose) not what I pictured.

But what the society pictures (if not myself) is hardly the reality of life.  By my sister-in-law's count we have been married something like 7,305 days.  That is a long time - by my count, there are now only a handful of friends I am in contact with that I have known longer.  And we have been through a great deal:  the birth and raising of three children, home purchases, job losses, relocation, vacations, days where we probably did not care for each other a great deal and days that we did. 

The reality of 20 years of marriage is that it is a very rich textured pattern of living - something which the idealized version of marriage simply cannot do justice to. In a way it dwells far more in the realm of science fiction and fantasy than that of romance - who can visualize at the time of marriage the actual realities of life being married? 

So Happy Anniversary to The Ravishing Mrs. TB and many thanks for a life which, while perhaps unimagined and unexpected in many ways, has been far more than I ever could have imagined.

I Love You.