The Barclay's

Sometime this week (Thursday to be precise) I will celebrate my 21st wedding anniversary (ironically, so will Kevin). I think it's odd that, in my brain, I still haven't been alive long enough to be celebrating 21 years of anything. But, the body reads differently. The body says, "girrrrlll, you are olllldddd!". I often use the words "shut up" to my body.

This was us shortly after we met in June of 1987. I was working the mullet for all it was worth. About six months after we met we surprised ourselves by realizing we might be in something akin to "love". The next year was a blur of moving and living on our own in faraway places like Stockton, California, Austin, Tx and Rutherfordton, N.C.

In October of 1988, in a hotel room in San Francisco, California, Kevin asked for my hand in marriage. I told him he could have all of me. He didn't realize what that would mean in the future when there would be so much more of me to love.

The day we initially set up for our date was a year later October 14th, 1989...for some reason that didn't work out with the church schedule so we settled on October 21st, 1989. This also happened to be Sweetest Day. Touching, I know.

Since I am a history buff, I thought it would be fun to look up what was going on in October of 1989. I vaguely remembered an earthquake (yes, vaguely...I was getting married for goodness sake) Sure enough the Loma Prieta earthquake (also known as the World Series Earthquake due to the fact that the World Series between the Oakland A's and the San Francisco Giants was being played. This earthquake was the first American earthquake to have its initial tremors witnessed on live television as the teams were warming up on the field at the time) struck at 5:04 PM on October 17th. It measured 7.1 on the Richter Scale and killed 67 or 63 (depending on which conflicting Wikipedia report to believe) people and delayed the World Series for ten days. I do distinctly remember the Bay Bridge collapsed on itself. Only a year before I had driven across that bridge myself a couple of times when we lived in Stockton. I'm not a fan of driving across bridges so the fact that one I had been on, collapsed on itself was, to say the least, unnerving.

For those of you who (whom?) are enjoying this beautiful fall weather we are having, I will tell you that, twenty one years ago tomorrow we received several inches of snow. It was beautiful really, big, fat, heavy, wet snowflakes that decorated the world in a way that I love. Two days later the sun was shining and it was in the 60's again. I live in Michigan because it is as unpredictable as I am.

I don't remember much about my wedding and less about my reception, and no, I wasn't drinking. It was just a long time ago. I know we have a fun story that is actually clean enough for public regaling. But, it is one of Kevin's favorites so you'll just have to wait until he gets a blog (HA). Just suffice to say that if ONE person gets out of a hot tub to turn on the jets...the water level goes down considerably and the jets may only be partially covered.

We honeymooned in Jamaica. We dove off a cliff into water so clear you could see the bottom...it didn't really seem to be safe to jump, but we did...kind of metaphoric (I love me a good metaphor) of marriage in general. This world shows us so clearly what a bad marriage looks like. We rarely get to view the good ones because it just isn't an interesting story. But, even knowing that it could go badly, we jumped into marriage...barely knowing each other honestly. Because, loving someone is nothing like living with someone...sharing the good and the bad, the ups and the downs and promising not to walk away even though sometimes the person you love most in the world is also the person whom you hurt or are hurt by the most. Also, while on our honeymoon, we ate goat meat. There is not metaphor for that. It was nasty. I got so excited one morning to see a box of Fruit Loops straight from the cereal city on the buffet. I tore into those babies with the energy of someone who had been fed goat meat for four straight days, only to find them stale. What a disappointment. I guess there is a metaphor there. The outside does not always keep its promises.

So 21 years, if you go by what my kids say, this is our "golden" anniversary. After all a "golden birthday" is when you turn the age of your birth date. So we celebrate 21 years on the 21st. Also, 21 is my favorite number. Am I too old to have a favorite number?...perhaps...but I'm also too old to laugh every time I hear the word "duty" but I still do.

Our marriage has not been without it's challenges but I am always a bit befuddled when someone talks about marriage being tough. I think being married is the best thing ever, and if I'm being honest, my marriage saved my life. It also gave me this...

And lots of other good things like a friend that has to hang out with me whether he wants to or not. And someone to refer my kids to when I don't feel like dealing with whatever they're whining about (i.e. "I'm sure your dad would love to help you with that situation".) And someone to laugh with when our kids say ridiculous things

(i.e. "you guys just don't understand how tough my life is") I like being married a lot. I think I specifically like being married to Kevin a lot.

It feels like just yesterday we got married but it also feels like a lifetime ago...six lifetimes ago to be more precise. I wonder if the people in San Francisco and Oakland feel the same way...?

By the way. I read the whole Wikipedia entry on the year 1989 and though you might also find this interesting.

Jan 24th, 1989 (which happened to be Kevin's "golden birthday") was the day that serial killer Ted Bundy was executed. This is what my beloved, soon-to-be husband looked like on that day. We were living in Austin, Texas.

Also on July 31st, 1989, Nintendo released the first Game Boy. In August, on the 20th, the Menendez brothers killed their parents (probably developed "violent tendencies" from too many hand held video games). And, in November, the East and West Germans began tearing down the Berlin wall. Also sometime in the year the last Golden Toad was seen, they are now extinct. I accept no blame for this. I was young and in love and I'm pretty sure the only thing we killed that year was the goat our bus driver mowed down on our honeymoon. And I feel like I've made amends with the goat population.