We've Been Married for Thirty Seven Years Today, I Think

That's a lot of years. Our 37th anniversary (if in fact today is the day) is being celebrated 2,000 miles apart. Himself is in Milwaukee on business and I'm on top of my bit of the mountain in Topanga, listening with delight to the rain and waiting for his phone call. We can't find our marriage certificate, or at least I can't, which means we can't easily settle our disagreement on the actual date we got married. I'm sure it's the 11th and Himself reckons it's today. Whatever the actual date, we generally don't remember until days or months later and the first one who screams "HAPPY ANNIVERSARY...I REMEMBERED FIRST!" gets to gloat and then we reminisce a bit and then it's over and, really, the actual marriage itself was so unmemorable that this seems enough celebration.

We married in a registry office in Hampstead, London and had a few friends as witnesses...that was it. It took about 10 minutes. He was identified on the marriage certificate as a civil engineer (almost 24 yrs. old) and I was labeled as a spinster (20 yrs old). Some guy with a camera hung around out front, on Tavistock Hill, and took a couple of photos. We paid him a guinea, upfront, and he mailed the three pictures to us a week or so later. I looked a bit green as my morning sickness was kicking in at photo time and Himself was all wrinkled in the suit he'd worn the night before (stag party left him feeling a bit morning sickie, too) and decidedly undressy desert boots. When I first saw the pictures I can remember thinking we looked completely unsure of this whole marriage gig, but now I look at them and all I notice is how very young we were.

So, maybe today is our anniversary and maybe it isn't. Whichever date is correct, I feel pretty lucky to still be with the man I fell in love with so many years ago. After all, we'd only known each other for about 12 weeks before we married and out of those three months, we'd only been in the same country for several weeks.