On this day, March 10
Tomorrow is March 10 2012, and it marks two very different anniversaries.
The first is sad, so very sad: it's Dad's birthday, and he would have been 79. Such a very young 79. So strange to think that this was one of the milestones we all had in mind for how long he would be with us. Days, weeks, or months? Christmas? New Year? Birthday? Mum's conference in February? Maybe even Easter?
The second is happier: 20 years since Husband and I became officially engaged, in the sense that that was when I started wearing my engagement ring. It wasn't exactly a surprise per se; if you asked me how he proposed to me (or vice versa) I couldn't tell you, as it never really happened like that. We sort of mutually negotiated our way into it, which is pretty much how we've lived our relationship since. It works for us.
OK, I wrote a letter kind of laying things out on the line and asking if our relationship was likely to go further. I can't remember the details, nor the exact tone, but Husband refers to it as the Ultimatum Letter. I doubt very much if it included a threat to leave him if he didn't marry me, but it was a let's-put-our-cards-on-the-table kind of affair that got us talking openly and frankly about the possibility of marriage.
We were engaged long before we lived together, but I was happy to treat an engagement as a trial run under contract conditions with easy exit clauses. If it turned out we couldn't get along in each other's company we could separate with minimal harm done. And I wouldn't *quite* be living in sin.
Yup, "living in sin" was a consideration. Marriage was important. And being married at 23 (!) didn't seem as incredibly young as it does today. I was a very old 23 it must be said, but I've regressed quite a bit since then. Today I am a spectacularly young 41.
And I miss my Dad so terribly terribly much. This young 41-year-old never stopped being Daddy's Girl. But poor Mum has lost so much more.
The first is sad, so very sad: it's Dad's birthday, and he would have been 79. Such a very young 79. So strange to think that this was one of the milestones we all had in mind for how long he would be with us. Days, weeks, or months? Christmas? New Year? Birthday? Mum's conference in February? Maybe even Easter?
The second is happier: 20 years since Husband and I became officially engaged, in the sense that that was when I started wearing my engagement ring. It wasn't exactly a surprise per se; if you asked me how he proposed to me (or vice versa) I couldn't tell you, as it never really happened like that. We sort of mutually negotiated our way into it, which is pretty much how we've lived our relationship since. It works for us.
OK, I wrote a letter kind of laying things out on the line and asking if our relationship was likely to go further. I can't remember the details, nor the exact tone, but Husband refers to it as the Ultimatum Letter. I doubt very much if it included a threat to leave him if he didn't marry me, but it was a let's-put-our-cards-on-the-table kind of affair that got us talking openly and frankly about the possibility of marriage.
We were engaged long before we lived together, but I was happy to treat an engagement as a trial run under contract conditions with easy exit clauses. If it turned out we couldn't get along in each other's company we could separate with minimal harm done. And I wouldn't *quite* be living in sin.
Yup, "living in sin" was a consideration. Marriage was important. And being married at 23 (!) didn't seem as incredibly young as it does today. I was a very old 23 it must be said, but I've regressed quite a bit since then. Today I am a spectacularly young 41.
And I miss my Dad so terribly terribly much. This young 41-year-old never stopped being Daddy's Girl. But poor Mum has lost so much more.