Celebrating 41 years today

November 22, 2012
Colorado, USA

Today we celebrate our 41st Anniversary. Forty-one years ago today we stood in front of a Justice of the Peace and repeated words I cannot remember other than "I Do". Five minutes and five dollars later we walked out hand-in-hand - married - with absolutely no inkling of what the future held. Little did we know that 41 years later the future would be as much a mystery as it ever was. And, we are OK with that, probably more so now than all those years ago because we have learned to live for today - one day at a time. Life is too short and too volatile to clutter it up with worry over things that are mostly out of our control or our reckoning.

Sometimes we look over our shoulders and say, "Whew!" And then... we move on.

People often ask us to reveal the secret of a long marriage. Hmmmm... that's a tough one. I do not believe we knew we should have a secret until people started asking about it. Ha! We started young. We learned to depend on each other, always seeking counsel from within not from without. We learned to trust each other. We learned to believe in each other. We learned that money takes a back seat to all things. We learned to encourage each other and to test the limits of our individual talents and imagination and creativity. We do not take each other for granted. We learned to respect the passion of the other without demanding to understand it. We have common interests and separate interests and allow that we do not have to agree about everything. Neither one of us believe the other must compromise the principles of our characters to get along. We have learned that control is not power. Power is a force of two - acting as one. We learned that together we are a force to be reckoned with and that we can accomplish just about anything we set our minds to. We keep a part of ourselves private and we guard the vulnerability of the other as best we may. We do most things together and we make a conscious effort to keep on doing things together. We consider the other first and foremost in all things. We practice what can only be termed the ethics of marriage - honesty, respect, responsibility and accountability. We talk. We argue. We challenge each other. And, we laugh more than most I think. I make him laugh. He makes me laugh.

We keep it real. I guess more than anything else we have learned to appreciate those certain qualities in each other that defines our collaboration as US.

Through the last forty years or so we have been involved in many different activities, jobs, child-rearing, and past-times which we gave as much attention and devotion as we thought each required, all of which have added yet another layer to our diverse compilation as individuals and as a couple. A long-time friend comments that whatever we get into - we give it 100% and some... and while she was speaking of all the mischief we have gotten into in the past, she was referring to US in the present and that which makes US a threesome - the Harley.

There is no doubt about it - we love the Harley, but it's more than that as anyone who rides will agree and have just as hard a time explaining it. We are who we are but the Harley makes us more.

As usual I am sharing the photos of what we have done and where we have been over the past year and it should come as no surprise that the majority of the pics revolve around the fun we had while we were out and about on The Ride. We started riding in late Summer 2008. We have logged over 60,000 miles on two Harleys since then. Make that 60,000 s'miles. As I always say - there's a reason the word smiles is miles with an s tacked on the front of it.

When Tim asked a few days ago what we should do for our anniversary, I understood he was not talking about traditional shopping or surprises or cards and flowers (none of which interest me) so I answered accordingly. Shine 'er up. Fill 'er up. I reckon we will take a ride if the weather holds. And that's exacty what we will do. Since our anniversary falls on Thanksgiving this year, it is not a big stretch of the imagination to see us riding out in search of a ham and turkey dinner somewhere.

Slide show of year #41 beginning with the celebration of #40 in 2011 (fair warning - 190 photos):

I will eventually get the anniversary movie up - but not today...
Alternative link to this slide show

Stay tuned... #42 is coming right up.