Finding Beauty in Every Face & Place – Opposites celebrate an anniversary

We are coming up on 32 years of marriage this next week.  And we almost didn’t make it oh, so many times because never in all your days have two more opposite people attracted.  Oh, it was electric when we were dating – the sheer energy of opposite backgrounds and tastes and desires. The brainiac and the beauty-lover met and fell head over heels.  But, I’m here to tell you, sometimes, and in some seasons, it just felt like we were falling; but, we always got back up, dusted ourselves off and went on.  And that is love. And that is one of the reasons we are celebrating our thirty-second anniversary a few days early. Well, that and the fact that we have just been through a very harrowing experience the last few days.  We are just celebrating early.

Over the years our young love grew into seasoned years where our differences turned into “games” of him going by the thermostat and turning it down to meat locker settings while I’d inch it up to more of a sauna setting. I’d turn every lamp on in the house and he would go around and turn them all off.  He has a quick wit and loves to speak out his opinion like a firecracker and I mull *things* over like a skier in front of the fire with time to think about *things* and discuss them with “more words than anyone he knows!”  He loves history, and to read and gather books while I enjoy poetry, art, and magazines.  He does not care when I have rooms painted periwinkle.  Only when we played a newlywed game upon first moving to Tennessee did I find out that the sticks (vases of branches that I display like corkscrew or pussywillows) are some of the very things he would first run over with a monster truck.  Who knew?   He loves meat and potatoes and my favorite is a tomato sandwich with Dukes, which would never ever cross his lips.  He was not one bit interested in meeting Calista Flockhart when we sat two chairs apart at a play.  On the other hand, I moved down and we chit-chatted for the whole intermission. He is practical and oh, so musically talented.  I love to travel and he is content to stay home.  I am an early bird and he is a night owl.  I enjoy making our home beautiful and he will start singing a song about making me the queen of a doublewide trailer with polyester curtains.  What is he even thinking about polyester and curtains in the same sentence?  I enjoy fashion and most of my earrings are beyond our lifestyle while he is very polo and khakis. And he uses that blasted Turbo setting on the toaster and if I forget to turn it back to normal where it should be, will flambé every piece of Ezekiel Bread I toast. In almost every area imaginable, we are opposites.  Think about that young whippersnappers:  the very *things* you find cute, can turn into irritations if you let it.  So my words of wisdom, continue to embrace the opposites in the other that attracted you in the beginning.  Continue pursuing. Continue loving. Continue celebrating.

Every day is a gift.

We are just stopping and celebrating early because on Wednesday this week, The Salesman started feeling really bad.  Bad like he felt on June 11, 2018 when his widow maker was blocked.  And on Thursday morning of our 31st year, 359 days in, and 3 hours in of our marriage, he turned a lamp on, looked at me and said, “It’s time to go.”  We slid on clothes and headed to the emergency room and The Salesman had a blockage in his heart stented.  It was a scary time for him and as his time in the lab exceeded an hour, more and more tears fell from my face.  In the end, the procedure was successful.

Knowing that he was not feeling well, I packed a bag the night before with his med list, phone charger cords, essential oils, – all the important things and was ready to grab and go when he said it was time.  But when we got to the hospital, I found that he had brought one thing: his brown blanket.  So, we draped his practical brown blanket over his recovering, bare foot body.  I had my brown relief floral patterned blanket draped over my legs with my pointy toe thrifted heels showing from the edges.  And there we were, celebrating our anniversary early, The Salesman in the hospital bed and me in the side chair; but, we were there together with brown blankets and celebrating our 32nd early. This is us.  So happy 31 years, 359 days and 3 hours.