30

You know, when you're a child, anyone with an age of double digits you think of as "old" but, for some reason,  someone who is thirty just seems to be ancient!  It's like that is the highest age your little mind can even comprehend.  Even when you are in your twenties there is something about the thought of turning thirty that just seems to make some dread that birthday and fear it making them feel "old".  Some people feel at thirty that all their best years are behind them.

Thirty is just a number with which you just don't want to associate.

Except today.

Today, I woke up celebrating the fact that I married my best friend 30 years ago.

I met Billy in March 1988.  And while I cannot usually tell you what I had for dinner last night, or will forget a plot point on a show we just watched last week, or even what day it is sometimes without a calendar, I can still remember exactly what I was wearing the day I met him - pink shorts and my favorite sleeveless pullover sweater with pink and baby blue argyles.  I can close my eyes and still see my surroundings of the moment I first saw him leaving the softball field in Conway in his red Camaro.  I can relate to you verbatim our first conversation.  I was sitting on the bleachers at the softball field, waiting on the next game to start.  I had brought my cross-stitching with me as I had actually very little interest in the games and was only really there to be nice to one of the players on the team.  As I was sitting there Billy walked over and used my needlework as his opening line "what are you knitting?"   My response, "it isn't knitting, this is cross-stitch, and it's a sampler, see?" showing him the pattern.  "I do know how to knit, though, but this isn't it."

(Billy gets very frustrated with me because I have a tendency to correct him, a lot in his opinion.  I remind him that I have been doing that, literally, since he met me so it shouldn't be a surprise, but I will promise to try harder not to do it.)

The thing is, when I met Billy I had no idea I was meeting my Forever.  At the point where my life was on that March

day, I had no intention of even looking for a Forever for a long time.  I was newly detached from a long-time relationship, about to graduate from college, and had a job in the audit department of an international accounting firm waiting on me to start July 1.

Rome, Italy - 20 year anniversary

Life was good and I saw no need to make any changes.


But, even though I didn't know I was meeting my Forever, the Diviner of the Master Plan certainly did and He made sure all those details stayed in my brain, whether I knew why they were there or not.

It didn't take long, though, for me to realize what I had.  Billy had known from the start.  He told me before our first official date that he was going to marry me someday.  Again, given where I was in my life at that point my first thought was "stalker" and I tried to point out that he didn't even really know me.  He might not like me so much once he did.

Okay, he was right and I was wrong.  He surreptitiously had me looking at engagement rings in August 1988, engaged on December 21, 1988, and then planning an April wedding.  Busy season in that international accounting firm kyboshed that idea.  I took a calendar and found a date halfway between our birthdays  - August 5 - as the replacement date.

Summer days in Arkansas are generally no picnic, and that August 5 of 1989 was no exception.  It was hot!  Mom went early to the church and them turn down the air conditioning as low at it would go (one of several trips to the church that morning!) but we were still sweating through the whole thing in our full formalwear.  My "something old" was the handkerchief my Naunie carried at her wedding and I used it the whole time to try and help with that.  Billy is not much into the Pomp and Circumstance of events and that day he started asking from the altar if we could leave yet.  Ceremony wasn't even finished but he'd had enough of the fishbowl and was ready to go.  I think he mostly just wanted to change out of that tux into some comfortable clothes.

That still hasn't changed.

That day was full of good memories.  The phone in my apartment rang just as Mom and Dad and I were walking out to head to the church and it was Sears, wanting to know if I wanted to extend the warranty on my washer and dryer.  I stood there listening to the lady on the on end of the line, Mom and Dad looking at me like I was crazy and then I stopped her and asked if she could call back in a week because I was just leaving to go get married!  As we were getting ready at the church Daddy walked into the bride's room and told me Billy had no socks to wear but he thought I would know where some were for him? - they were in my purse.  I had realized when Billy brought his two garbage bags full of all his clothes that he had forgotten to leave some out for the wedding.  We took picture after picture and that chapel length train came in handy because the only way I could really be seen in any of the pictures with Billy in them was to stand one stair up behind him.  They swirled the train in front of me so it wasn't quite as obvious.

Thirty years is a long time.  Over the years we have shared love and supported each other through losses.  We have moved several times - different houses, different states - and endured a major home remodel where we did the bulk of the work ourselves.  We have changed jobs and been self-employed at the same time, working for each other.  We have created our family by bringing in dogs that needed a home and cried together when they left us, but always finding room for just one more.

We have built our Forever, together.

Funny thing, neither of us feel old enough to have been married for thirty years.

Walt Disney World - 5th anniversary

 (Billy used to tell me he didn't even think he'd live to see thirty so imagine his surprise in 1994 when he made it.)  Sometimes we still feel like those young kids that wanted to go to Six Flags over Texas for a weekend vacation, or travel to watch the Razorbacks on away weekends.  Up and able and ready to do anything!  A few years ago, though, we went to a concert in Lafayette, LA on a Thursday night and drove home afterward because I needed to be at work on that Friday and as Billy stood in front of the open fridge, trying to get something to put together for my breakfast, he said "we're too old for this".

We have enjoyed the good times and worked through those that weren't.  We are always striving to balance the seesaw, knowing that sometimes your job is to hold the other one up, and sometimes it is you that needs to be held.

But for all the ups and downs there is no one that I would rather do this Life with.  No one.  He is my rock, my biggest fan and

 cheerleader, my Everything, and I try to do the same for him.  He is the reason I want to wake up every day - just to see what that day might bring to us.

Both sets of my grandparents celebrated over 50 years of marriage.  I see as we get older that reaching 50 years together is as much luck as it is anything else.  The first step is that you have to get old enough to be together 50 years and that is often out of your control, but I'm certainly pushing for it!  I thank the Lord each night for giving us what He has so far, and hoping every day for just one more.

So, here's to another 30, baby!  I love you more than Life!  Thank you for knowing what you wanted all those years ago, and waiting on me to figure it out.

Costa Rica - 25 anniversary