Twenty-five Years and Counting

In celebration of our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary the other day, my husband Paul and I did something special: We had our wedding bands cut off.

We were not symbolically severing our relationship as we severed the thinning gold from our thickening fingers. But it was time to admit that, after years of slowly adding extra weight, those rings were not coming off without help, and we were not going to be reverting to the slim bride and groom in our wedding album any time soon.

When I look at the photos of that young bride, happy and hopeful, unburdened by extra weight around the waist or lines around the eyes, gazing at her slender groom…I still feel like that. Less familiar looking is the person who looks back at me now from the mirror. I’m still making plans for the future as if it stretches out forever, and I wonder where 25 years could have gone.

The years quietly slipped away in moments big and small. A glorious honeymoon, followed quickly by a layoff. The births of our two cherished daughters, and the deaths of our two cherished mothers. The terror of knowing a sick child may not live, and tremendous joy when she did. Hours spent side by side at the soccer field, dance competitions, plays, art shows, and graduations. The long nights trying to explain algebraic equations we scarcely remembered ourselves, and long sessions doing our own math so I could stop working, so we could buy a bigger home, so we could pay tuitions. Finding time for tennis and volleyball and trips to the beach. Vacations in the snow and sun, holidays with his family, my family, our family. Paul putting in a brick walk in the summer heat because I wanted it. Me joining a sand sculpting team because he needed a teammate. Raking the leaves, cleaning the bathrooms, unclogging the sink, folding the laundry. Negotiating whether the Patriots game or Desperate Housewives gets the good TV. Laughing, crying, yelling, hugging.

Next week, we will pick up Paul’s resized and shined-up ring, and I’ll be getting a new one that is bigger and better than the old one. But that’s not the only reason I am okay with saying good-bye to the ring I’ve been wearing all these years. It has been a long and mostly happy marriage – one that has brought us closer together but has also brought us pretty far from those young, clueless pretty people in our wedding picture. It’s okay to let go of who we used to be – we really do have something bigger and better now.