Making it would be golden

It's early, and I know a lot can happen in the next four months, but I'm putting this out there just to challenge myself in a public way: I'm working to become one of  the Six Percent on June 7, 2025.

On that date I will have been married to the same guy for 50 – count, 'em, fifty – years. (I expected to be gray and bent over by this time, but instead I have purple hair, wear red shoes, and follow a certain rock band on tour. Go figure...)

Of all the couples married in the blockbuster* year of 1975,  just six in every 100 will make it to 2025, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. (*This is when Springsteen hit the national scene and his lyrics resonated deeply, "I want to know if love is wild, And I want to know if love is real." Exactly what I was wondering!)

But don't give me any medals. No heroics have been involved in this effort. Yes, effort; we had to really work at it. (Note the "Marriage" chapter of my book, p. 213.) Fred Rogers's observation was right-on:

Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.

I know: acceptance EVERY DAY?! In truth, I found that to be too tall an order:

• He likes his venison; I like to eat my 30 different plants a week.

• His sleep is disturbed by any light or sound; I'm usually out like a rock once I fall asleep.

• He likes to make snap decisions, as in, let's just get this over with. I like to study things until I know more than Einstein, as in, let's be super-cautious about this.

But after going through the crucible – and there will always be crucibles – I come back to acceptance. Because he is more than worthy of my love, and who we are as a couple is worth preserving. Worth treasuring, even. And so I do.

Currently, we don't agree on how to center the hearth rug in front of the fireplace. (His eye skews way left, IMO. ) Luckily, we both realize that this divergence is trifling. So we each shift the rug to our liking; and then our partner moves it back.

This ritual goes on throughout the winter season. Hopefully, it will see us through to June 7.

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