I also surprised my parents with my impromptu visit and was there to share the day of their 40th wedding anniversary.
There’s something about going home and having this strange pressure (spawned by good-natured comments) put on you, rethinking life as you know it, for a moment wondering if the REAL success in life doesn’t actually happen until you have
the husband and 2.5 children.
I’ve been very leery when it comes to the idea of marriage. My struggle is that I know people who get married because they’re just comfortable with the person they’ve been with for so long or, simply, “
why not?” Most choices I make have some sort of bigger-picture meaning attached to them and I don’t want to jump into any life-altering decision without being sure -- 100% -- that this person is the one I want to spend each day with. For eternity, I would hope.
And there are the ones that say, “You feel it in your gut. You just know when you know.” Is that true? Does that feeling actually exist? Am I skeptical because I haven’t had that feeling yet or is that just another fairy tale created by people who try to make “he was the best case scenario” sound more poetic?
I’ve heard the story of my parents’ first meeting, the courtship, the denial of marriage the first time around by my Grandmother (who was convinced her oldest son would choose priesthood over a wife). Then the traveling, then the child and now the retirement. I don’t know if they “just knew.” I don’t know HOW they could “just know,” at the ripe ages of 21 and 22.
However, I witnessed my Mom opening up the small ring box containing the significant 40th year
ruby and saw tears in both of my parent's eyes as she kept repeating softly, “
oh, baby – you shouldn’t have....”
It gave me some confirmation that perhaps it’s not how you got there, but if you do happen to find yourself there, maybe the “you know when you know” is something you discover throughout 40 years.
