Okay.  Fine.  I’ll say it.  BLISS.  It just sounds more like a hallmark card and less original than I’d like.  We started dating in 1984, so we’ve been a couple for twenty six years.   We passed the point of being together for more than half our lives a few years ago.

June 24, 1989

I have no complaints about the life Bill and I have built over the last twenty one years.  There are a few things I would do differently, maybe, but even then the whole time travel paradox thing would set in so I’m not entirely sure that would be a wise decision.   Okay–maybe  if I knew then what I know now, I might not have chosen mauve for my bridesmaids.  And, the hair?  I might have tried to go for the Grace Kelly timelessness I so admire now.    As it is, the photos are a snapshot into Americana circa 1989.  The big shoulders were “in”, poofy hair was “in” and so were long tail tuxes.

I’m not sure where beards fall into the category, but Bill did shave his off in 1994 just weeks before our daughter was born.  All in all it’s been a good life and marriage.  We have been very lucky.

There’s a couple at our church who celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary shortly after we joined in 1992.  Their party was crowded and they were often separated by dozens of people.  At one point, I saw them exchange a look across the top of the crowd, and it seemed to me that they could read each other’s thoughts. You probably know the look.  It’s the one that people who know each other so well that they don’t even need to say what they are thinking.   I remember hoping to have that kind of look with Bill someday.  It didn’t take us fifty years, but there are times when I can look over at him and just know what he’d be saying right then.

Dressed up for Teatro Zinzanni 2009

We probably haven’t changed that much in twenty-one years.  I still have a penchant for off the shoulder dresses and up-dos.  Bill’s hair is shorter–on his face and head.  And maybe we look a little more grown-up than we did the day we got married.

I’m looking forward to the next twenty years.  Ah…Now I know why the word “bliss” doesn’t cut it for me.  It’s too simplistic and understated for what I have experienced in the last twenty one years.  I don’t know what to call it.  Something will have to do.