(NOT a microblog post, lol.)
Yesterday was our 40th (!!) wedding anniversary. (How did that happen??)
Despite the significance of 40 years -- nothing to sneeze at, especially these days -- it was a very quiet, low-key kind of day, for a number of reasons:
First, whose bright idea was it to get married in early July?? -- the hottest time of the year, right after Canada Day and the 4th of July in the U.S., when everywhere you might want to go is swarming with tourists, and hotel prices are at their peak?? (Speaking from experience...!)
As an aside: I actually wanted to get married on June 16th. 16 has long been one of my favourite/lucky numbers, I grew up hearing that June was the perfect month for a wedding, and from the time I was a teenager, at least, June 16th was a date in my head for my wedding -- AND, June 16th fell on a Saturday in 1985! -- AND both the chapel & reception venue we wanted were available that day!
But my mother was working then (part-time, but...), as a teacher aide at an elementary school, and classes didn't end until the very end of June -- and she said a June wedding would be one way to send her to an early grave (sure Mom, lay on the guilt...!). (She did say the same thing about a Christmas wedding, lol -- which I also suggested as a very pretty time of year to get married -- so much of your decorating already done for you, right?) So I took the first available date after June ended, which was July 6th.
Which was just as well. It was one of those summers (especially when you're in your 20s) when all your friends and cousins (and your parents' friends kids, and cousins' kids, etc.) are getting married. There were were wall to wall weddings (and the corresponding showers, etc.) -- a friend from high school, my cousin, my second cousin, the cousin of one of my bridesmaids (I knew her too), and the same bridesmaid herself got married that summer (in August). Even if my parents or I weren't invited to all of these weddings, or couldn't go to them, a lot of people who came to our wedding were going to those ones too.
I wrote to my first-year university roommate to tell her the date -- I was considering asking her to be a bridesmaid too -- and she actually called me up (which she rarely did -- long distance was expensive back then!) and said, "Well, kiddo, we've both picked the SAME WEDDING DAY!" I suppose it was inevitable, with all the weddings going on, that there would be a conflict with someone...! So we didn't get to attend each others' weddings! (She & her husband -- a guy I'd introduced her to! -- wound up splitting a few years later.)
Another reason we didn't do much on/around our anniversary this year is we'll be heading west to see my family soon -- and there's lots of stuff we need to get done before we go. Even if crowds and pricing weren't a factor, a looming travel deadline and a long to-do list made it difficult to do too much else besides dinner out.
We didn't think much about it at the time, but we got married the same year (and same month!) that my parents were marking their 25th anniversary! My dad's family (my aunts & uncles, and his cousins) have always made a big deal out of significant wedding anniversaries and often held big parties of some sort for 25, 40, 50 and onward. Even though we were up to our necks in wedding plans, they relentlessly pressured me and my sister about what we were going to do for Mom & Dad's 25th? (!) They proposed "surprising" my parents by showing up at the house en masse (!).
Of course you couldn't just have a horde of people show up and not be prepared to feed them! (and I knew my mother would kill me if I knew this was going to happen and the house wasn't clean...!) -- so we told our parents & my mother arranged for some food. (The guests did bring some food with them too, but it would not have been enough on its own.) I made a special solo trip home to be there (even though we'd just spent a ton of money on a wedding and a honeymoon a few weeks earlier, dh had only just started working and I was unemployed), and we planned the party date so that I could also attend my friend/bridesmaid's wedding on Aug. 9th.
Since then, my parents' milestone anniversaries have always taken precedence over ours. When their 40th rolled around, my sister & I hosted a dinner/dance for them, with about 100 friends & family members attending. We did the same for their 50th (minus the dancing, since we found most people just wanted to chat anyway), and we were planning a come-and-go tea in the church basement for their 60th before the pandemic intervened. Travel restrictions meant I couldn't be there at all for the day, so my sister wound up serving cake & coffee in the backyard to about a dozen neighbours, and that was it. They will be marking #65 (!) while we're there -- no big parties planned this time around (and many of the people who insisted we needed to have a party, and attended them, are either gone, or would have difficulty coming now), but we will find some way to celebrate.
To her credit, when we started planning the 50th, my sister said, "Are we doing a combined 25/50 party, or just 50?" I felt uncomfortable taking the spotlight away from Mom & Dad, so 50-only it was (although my sister bought me a corsage and dh a boutonniere too, and several people brought us anniversary cards too).
When I think about it, we celebrated my maternal grandparents' big anniversaries with them, too. I remember a family dinner for their 40th -- we all dressed up -- with cake & coffee at the house later. A few of the neighbours may have dropped by. We held a big come & go tea in the church basement on their 50th, with lots of distant family travelling to be there. We put an even notice in the weekly community newspaper (common practice there), and lots of local friends & neighbours came too. By the time their 60th came around, they were living at the seniors home, but we still had a lot of family come to celebrate. We served cake & coffee and played bingo with the residents in the community room. We didn't advertise, but somehow word spread and several people from town came by anyway to wish them well.
I went to several big anniversary parties for aunts, uncles & cousins on my dad's side (and missed many others, because of distance). On mom's side, I flew solo to Minneapolis in May 2014 to attend my uncle and aunt's 50th anniversary party. I'm very glad I did, because it was one of the last times I saw him before his death last year and I got to see a lot of other people I hadn't seen in a long time too.
I don't know if dh's parents did anything to celebrate their 25th anniversary. His mom died a few years after that. FIL & stepMIL celebrated their 25th anniversary with a big party/dinner with family & friends at a nearby restaurant. FIL died just before they hit 30. A few of the aunts & uncles have had parties to celebrate their milestone anniversaries, especially the 25th, but it generally doesn't seem to be the big "must do" thing that it is in my dad's family.
So, celebrating anniversaries has long been a "thing" in my family. (Maybe not so much in dh's.) Obviously, we have no children or grandchildren to organize anniversary celebrations for us, or make a fuss over us, or remind people that it's a big anniversary for us. Or even to take a photo of us. If we have any anniversary photos of ourselves, it's because we've taken them ourselves -- with a self-timer, in the old camera days, or as a "selfie," with our cellphones now. The results are often less than stellar, lol -- but we have a lot of laughs along the way! I have, very occasionally, asked a waiter to take our photo -- and they are always happy to oblige -- but dh doesn't like doing that.
It's up to us to celebrate ourselves.
But I've never felt comfortable with the idea of hosting our own anniversary party, and I know dh feels the same way. (Which is not to say we don't appreciate a little recognition or fuss made over us, now & then...!) We have sometimes gone out for dinner with BIL & SIL on our anniversary (and on theirs) -- and I did suggest to dh that we could invite BIL & SIL, and perhaps dh's two cousins who were in our wedding party, and their partners, to come out for dinner with us -- and maybe the nephews and their families too. Yes, it would have been expensive, but your 40th anniversary only rolls around once, right? But dh preferred to keep it to just the two of us. He doesn't even like telling the restaurant staff that it's our anniversary either (even if it might result in a freebie or two.
There have been some years when we've done more than just going out for dinner. We've sometimes spent the night at a swanky downtown hotel, and/or gotten theatre tickets. We've spent a couple of anniversary weekends in Niagara-on-the-Lake (a favourite getaway spot -- albeit, again, very crowded and busy -- and expensive!! -- especially at this time of year!). We spent a couple of anniversaries at "cottage country" resorts (on Lake Simcoe, and near Huntsville), one in Stratford, and one in Kingston. We spent our 25th anniversary at the theatre ("Rock of Ages" -- an 80s rock musical -- how appropriate, lol) and spent the night at the King Edward Hotel downtown -- and then spent a week in September driving around Nova Scotia. (I've written about many of these trips & celebrations on this blog -- and while I haven't tagged each individual reference, you can find some of those posts here tagged/labelled "
our wedding anniversary".) And we will probably take some kind of trip again later this fall. (I will probably write more about that in another post, down the road.) We've sometimes been in Manitoba with my family for our anniversary, and I remember at least one time that my mom got a cake for us then.
(But it's generally up to ME to propose/express a preference about what we should do, do any research & planning involved, and make any necessary reservations...! I generally don't mind -- I'm enough of a control freak that I would certainly want my say on any major decision making in that regard, lol -- but it's exhausting sometimes... Just once in a while, I'd like to leave all the decisions and planning up to dh. But I know if I did that, nothing would ever happen...! -- and I suspect I'm not alone among wives in that respect...!)
As I said, it's up to us to celebrate ourselves. And if we were waiting for anyone else to make a fuss over us on our big day, we would have been sadly disappointed. Would have been? Okay, I'll admit it -- I was/am feeling a little irritated... Okay, pissed off. I changed my cover & profile photos on Facebook to shots from our wedding, as I usually do -- and got a few "likes" and comments there -- but I had to wonder whether anyone would have remembered the occasion if I hadn't done that.
Sunday is my usual day to call my parents -- and I was wondering/hoping that maybe they might call ME this time around. Nope, I had to call them -- and neither of them said one word about it being our anniversary. (I didn't prompt or hint at them either.) I know my mom will probably call and apologize when she does remember (it's not the first time this has happened -- although I don't think they've ever forgotten my birthday!). I did think my sister (my maid of honour) might call -- she sometimes does on our anniversaries -- but, silence.
While some of dh's relatives liked or commented on my FB photos, there was no flurry of "happy anniversary" posts on his family's WhatsApp groups or text groups, as there often is when someone is celebrating an anniversary or a birthday or other special occasion. Of course, it's usually the parents or kids who proudly post about the special dates in their parents' or kids' lives. We don't have anyone to do that on our behalf.
What *really* rubbed some salt in the wound: dh's cousin in Italy did post "happy anniversary" wishes on WhatsApp -- for her parents (dh's uncle & his wife), who were celebrating THEIR 50th anniversary that very same day (!). Now, I certainly do not begrudge them the anniversary wishes -- and 50 does outrank 40...! -- but let's just say I waited a while before I added my own "likes." (But I did not leave a comment.) I'll admit, I can be a little petty sometimes (lol -- I come by it honestly -- there was NO ONE who could hold a grudge like my grandmother and/or her older sister!!). I wanted to see if anyone would clue in and mention that someone ELSE was celebrating a significant/milestone anniversary the same day too...! I thought SIL might add something to the effect that we were celebrating a big anniversary too (particularly since, to her credit, she did privately text me & dh earlier with best wishes), especially when she added her own congratulations to the chain -- but she did not.
All the ranting/whining above aside (lol) -- I was (am!) proud and happy to have reached this milestone, and so very thankful for dh and the good life we've built together these past 40 (!!) years... with its share of ups & downs, to be sure, and without the children or grandchildren we once assumed would be ours -- but a very good life, nevertheless. We've agreed to another 40 more (at least). ;)
It was a very quiet, low-key kind of day. It was horribly hot & humid again -- peak temperature was 34C/40C humidex -- that's 93F and 104F -- so we mostly stuck close to home and air-conditioned comfort, lol. We exchanged cards (as we always do). But later in the day, we dressed up a bit (I wore a sundress) and went out for dinner at
a local steakhouse. We hadn't been there since well before the pandemic began. (And holy cow, the prices have sure gone up since the last time we were there...!)
And then we came home -- and watched "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" on TMC, lol. I've seen it several times since I first saw it as a teenager -- but not in a while. haven't laughed that much in a long time. (I needed that!)
And that was about it. We're hoping to take a trip later this fall, when the weather is not so hot and the crowds have thinned out a bit (we hope..!). Where, exactly, hasn't been settled, but we have some ideas...
Please celebrate the people in your lives, on the meaningful dates in their lives (and maybe "just because" too). Especially the people who don't have kids, or husbands/partners. They may not have had weddings and all the attendant celebrations surrounding those, and anniversaries to mark afterwards, and/or baby showers and gender reveals (and then kids' birthdays and baptisms and first communions and confirmations and graduations after that). But we all have birthdays, and we've all done other things in our lives that are worth celebrating: education achievements, new homes, new jobs, promotions, retirements... Trust me, it means a lot when you make the effort.
You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.
